


The Package Deal

by kalkoenvsneoklak



Series: Prophecies [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester is Ben Braeden's Parent, Demon Bela Talbot, Hospital, Human Castiel, Human Emma, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, Medical Patient Dean, Multi, Nephilim, Parenting life, Sick Dean Winchester, Teenage Drama, Unoficially Adopted Claire, twin babies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalkoenvsneoklak/pseuds/kalkoenvsneoklak
Summary: The twins are born, Dean is alive and Castiel is human. Even though it all ended well, now they must all live with the aftermath of Dean's resurrection. While Dean has to stay at the hospital and heal the old fashion way, Cas tries his best to take care of their boys. Sam and Lauren discover some unnatural things in their relationship, and Kevin and Claire build up a friendship everybody seems to be asking questions about. When suddenly Dean and Cas' little family of five seems to have two more new members, the question is how these unexperienced people are going to handle two teenagers, one toddler and two Nephilim newborns?





	1. Everybody is horrible at parenting at first

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a slow work in progress. I intended on only posting this one after the Honeymoon was done, but as I'm writing equally slow with both of them, I decided to go ahead and post it already. Don't expect weekly chapters, school life is going to prevent me from doing that.  
> This one will also only have eleven chapters that will be much shorter than in the first story. 
> 
> Also, I'm a nurse in training, so I don't feel very awkward writing about hospital-related things. If in any case it gets too much, just tell me and I'll tone it down :-)
> 
> Enjoy, and let me know what you think <3

 

 “So this tube you’re about to shove through my nose-“

“It’s mostly for the severe malnutrition you’re suffering.”

Dean nods, despite every part in his body telling him that, no, this is just wrong.

Of course, this is just simply Dean’s life. He hasn’t been awake for very long, only just returned from visiting the twins when the doctor arrived at his door with another nurse at his side. Both men had looked apologetic for the sudden intrusion, but that doesn’t help the current situation.

As it turns out, said situation is this: after miraculously pulling through a major open-heart surgery, where nobody even remembers Dean dying or even being a woman at first thanks to Gabriel messing with their brains, Dean still turns out to be severely underweight. The man explained that, despite surviving the surgery, Dean is still in a major danger zone and _will not_ get better unless he puts on some weight.

Now, the doctors think he’s skinny because he refuses to eat. In truth, he’s only ended up this way because he’s been carrying two Nephilim boys inside his body for eight and a half months. Of course, that’s not something they can just easily say, so they mostly just stick with the ‘Dean got depressed and refused to eat’-story, meaning that he’s given multiple anti-depressants next to his medication for the heart according to the doc currently sitting in front of him.

“Right, so through this tube you will bring food down my stomach? To make sure I get enough for each day?”

“We’ll start slow, of course. Most important is that you get the required-“ Dean stops listening there, instead turning his head towards Cas, who is sitting next to him, staying completely quiet while he keeps his hand lying on Dean’s. The guy hasn’t spoken much since Dean woke up, instead being a silent but constant presence at Dean’s side. Sam, on the other hand, can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, as is indicated by the big flow of questions he’s letting loose on the doctor.

Dean doesn’t remove his eyes from Cas. The man looks horrible – not as horrible as Dean, of course, but obviously he’s been having little sleep over these past few days. According to Sam, Cas hasn’t left the hospital, only agreeing to check on the twins whenever somebody was with Dean. Apparently, they’ve been trying to convince the nurses to allow the babies to stay here now, but so far they’ve been disagreeing, mostly because they’re afraid that they would make too much noise whenever they would start crying.

“Listen, doc, just do what you have to do. I’ll do anything to get back home with my family,” Dean interrupts the man’s speech. He doesn’t think too much of the fact that both the doctor and the nurse seem extremely surprised by his co-operation here. Of course, _they_ think he’s inflicted all this on himself.

“Uh, of course. I’ll have the nurse prepare a feeding tube then. This procedure might not be pleasant to watch, so I’m going to have to ask your family to leave the room for a little while.”

Dean nods in agreement, and wonders what could possibly be worse than having a tube through his- no, he won’t even finish that sentence. As if it hadn’t been bad enough the first time they placed one, they apparently had to repeat the process when Dean magically recuperated from the surgery. Sure, it’s not like Dean even felt it either of those time, since he was highly sedated the first time and unconscious the second, but right now he can still feel it.

All in all, things have been going great. Dean woke up with his husband’s head resting against his shoulder, with a dull but burning pain in his chest from where he had been cracked open. When Cas had then eventually gotten out of his sleep, they had shared a short kiss and Sam had joined in the room to start discussing things as they are now.

“I’m also telling the nurses that the stitches from the wound on your lower belly can be taken out now. That has healed good enough, so next time they’ll come and clean it, they’ll take it away.”

“You won’t see me complaining,” Dean jokes. Cas then finally stands up, gives Dean a light kiss on the forehead, and lets out a small sigh.

“I’ll go check on the twins,” he says, and Dean nods. After that, the former Angel leaves the room.

It’s safe to say that, while becoming human had been a complete conscious decision from Cas’ side, it’s clear that’s he’s pretty broken up about it. He’s constantly exhausted, silent – even more than before. Sam told him right after waking up that it’s probably because Cas can’t see Alan’s or Jonah’s Grace, and that he had to hear from Hannah what it looked like.

Dean shoots his husband a look of concern. He just doesn’t know what he can say to him; Cas lost his wings – permanently. He’ll age, he’ll get sick (even more than before), and eventually, he will die. Then the question will be; did Death give Cas a soul when he removed his Grace, or is Cas walking around soulless like Sam did? Probably not, right? Since Cas sleeps and eats like any normal person.

Sam’s fine, of course. He’s with the twins right now, coming to visit them and Dean every day. Sometimes he brings Lauren along, but since the woman still has a job to do it’s mostly just him.

Dean had asked how the two finally got together again. Sam had just shrugged with a light smile on his face.

“Somehow news had spread that you were gone, and she stormed to the hospital to find us. When she found me, you were alive, so she just kind of grabbed me and kissed me.”

Yeah, it’s as simple as that. Dean’s sure that, whatever trouble’s they’ve had in the past, they’ll surely just talk it out. Sam’s good at that, anyway.

It’s too soon when the nurse returns with her stuff. Right, better get this thing over with.

 

* * *

 

 

Things change for the better when, two weeks after their birth, the twins are finally allowed to join Dean in his room.

For fourteen days now, Dean is stuck in this small space, tubes shoved inside too many parts of his body. He can’t get up to go to the toilet, has to be washed in bed, and no matter how many painkillers they shove into him, the wound on his chest still hurts. Cas had told him that will probably not change for a while.

Somebody needs to work on his motivation skills.

Of course, having Alan and Jonah so close to Dean really does something to his mood. They wouldn’t even have been allowed here normally, but it seems like Hannah, who had stayed with the twins in that room the entire time (literally, she never left) had managed to convince the chief nurse that the boys don’t make any noise.

Which is true; they don’t cry. At all. Whenever they’re hungry, they start to fuss lightly, but mostly they notice it quickly enough before they can let out all the contents inside their lungs into a deafening howl. The nurses prepare the formula on a schedule, and once it’s time to feed them, one of the boys is put inside Dean’s arms while Cas takes the other, and together they offer them the bottle. Dean heart melts every time Alan or Jonah smile at him after they’re finished drinking.

‘Gastric Smile’, one of the nurses had told him. They only smile because they’re satisfied, but they’ll smile at Dean or Cas soon enough. Once she had left, Cas had agreed quietly.

“Their sight hasn’t completely developed yet. For now, all they see is blurred shapes,” he explains afterwards. Dean doesn’t care, though. Each smile one of his little ones throws at him, Dean takes in with the intention of keeping it safe inside of him.

The boys are literally perfect. They’re both so small, chubby as any baby normally is, with only the lightest freckles on their cheeks. While Alan has Dean’s own green eyes, Jonah’s are blue like Cas’. So far their hair is extremely light, but it’s often that it darkens as they get older. As far as Dean remembers from his dreams in the past, Alan’s hair would be darker than Jonah’s.

“I can’t imagine that I would almost have missed this,” Dean mutters, looking lovingly at his younger son in his arms. Sure, they’re only born a few minutes apart, but Dean still imagines Alan being smaller and more fragile than Jonah because of that, while, in fact, they’re completely the same size.

“You deserve this, Dean,” Cas says fondly. Dean shakes his head and leans his head a bit to the side until it’s leaning against Cas’ shoulder.

“ _We_ deserve this,” he corrects. Cas sighs happily, and rests his head above Dean’s while their sons are happily sucking from their bottle.

The nurses help Cas with cleaning the boys, or changing their diapers. They teach him how to prepare the formula, how to look out for signs that things are wrong, and how to hold them in his arms. Every time Cas returns from any of these ‘lessons’, he quickly passes them back along to Dean, who can’t really do much right now other than nod and listen.

After the third week comes the announcement that the twins are clear to go home.

It’s great news, probably the best news Dean could hear right now; his boys are strong and healthy, and safe to get out of the hospital. Of course, with them leaving this building, it would mean that Dean would have to stay here, alone.

“I’ll come every day, Dean,” Cas tells him. Dean can only shake his head.

“No way, you have to take care of our boys,” Dean counters. If Cas would be here all the time, the boys won’t be spending time with their father. That’s not how they should start parenthood. “Cas, seriously, I’ll be alright. Just… bring them along once in a while, okay? After all these months with them so close it feels weird to have them far away.” Dean shudders at the idea of being separated from his sons, again.

Eventually, when Cas takes the boys home at last, for the first time, Dean’s completely alone in the hospital. It’s then that Dean realizes that it will probably take a _while_ until he’s healthy enough to join his family back into the bunker.

Now that he thinks back of it, only one year ago he was only barely married with Cas, gone on their long honeymoon without any worries about the future. Back then, they both still had just avoided the topic of having kids. Look at them now; parents of two.

Yes, things have really changed. A lot, even. And normally, Dean is more or less able to just find out what’s going to happen next. Right now, though, he has no clue what more they can expect.

Demons walk around the Earth again, meaning that they have an old threat back on the battlefield. Normally, Dean’s first instinct would be to chase down every single of those fuckers around there and banish them back. Now, he’s not so sure anymore. Having two little ones suddenly brings things back into perspective.

They need him alive. It’s been the whole reason _why_ the Demons are even back on Earth, for Dean to live – of course, in the end offering the Colt to Rowena, who by the way hasn’t been heard from since, didn’t help with Dean’s situation at all. It’s safe to say that they’re return has no further meaning.

 _Maybe we should try to close the gates again_ , Dean thinks to himself, but he figures it won’t be that easy anymore. Sure, he might be able to get into Hell to fetch a soul and bring it back to Heaven, but Dean is certain that, whoever will be in charge, will keep a close watch on those Hellhounds. Nobody’s going to be dealing with the Winchesters for a long time.

“Hello Mr. Winchester, I got your pills,” a nurse suddenly says, making Dean look up in surprise. Right, now’s not really the time to figure this shit out. All he needs to worry about right now is to heal. If not for himself, for his boys; for Alan and Jonah. And, of course, for Cas.

The first evening without the twins feels awful, and he doesn’t see them the entire day afterwards. On the third day, Sam and Cas return to visit, with Claire and Kevin tagging along. They got an enormous carrier with them, and Dean’s heart jumps with joy.

“They’ve been a bit fidgety at night without you,” Sam says while pulling Jonah out and bringing him over to Dean. The older Winchester already has his arms held out, and the moment his son is inside of them he holds him as close as he can.

Jonah’s eyes are open, staring at him in that same way Cas always does. There’s no smile on the kid’s face, instead just a slightly opened mouth and chubby cheeks. When Dean leans forward to press a kiss on his son’s head, the kid makes a content noise.

“My boys are missing me, so it seems,” Dean says fondly while allowing Jonah to rest against his chest. The boy lets out a loud yawn and then seems to fall asleep almost immediately. After that, Alan is handed to him as well, and Dean lets him lie next to his brother. “Didn’t they sleep at all?”

Cas is rubbing his eyes as he sits down on the chair next to Dean’s bed. His hand comes to rest on Dean’s where the hunter is holding on to his sons. It feels great to have that touch again. He’s so used of having Cas constantly at his side, it’s quite weird if he’s not there all of the sudden, even if it’s only for one day.

“They sleep for about three hours but then they just wake up and start to get unnerved,” Cas explains in a loud sigh. Meanwhile, Claire and Kevin take a place next to Dean’s bed. “I thought at first that they just didn’t need that much sleep, but when I brought them into bed after a while they seemed to sleep on just fine.”

“Huh,” Dean says. “I suppose they just need some contact, then.” Dean looks at the boys, finding them fast asleep already in just a matter of minutes, it’s almost impossible to believe that they would give any trouble at night. “I remember that they would calm down whenever they felt your Grace near.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have that anymore,” Cas complains, for the first time giving anybody a hint that he might be bothered about being a human. He’s been hiding it so well up until now, so it seems.

“I know, but one day I held your trench coat in my hands, don’t ask,” he interrupts his story when Sam snorts, “and, I don’t know, they seemed to sense your Grace on that as well.”

“That might be why I have no trouble making them stop crying,” Claire says, probably remembering the small amount of Grace inside of her that is still left. It had been enough to calm the twins down all those months ago, back when Dean had been going full-on murder-machine on two teenagers who couldn’t do anything better in their lives.

“It’s possible,” Dean says. But why is it that they’re currently so easily asleep on Dean’s chest? Do they need Dean’s soul, too? If Cas has a soul now, they probably don’t know it yet. It’ll just take a little time for them to get used to it, for sure.

When Cas leans to his side to rest his head against Dean’s shoulder, Dean lifts up his other hand and goes through Cas’ hair, letting out a small chuckle.

“Don’t worry, babe, you’re doing great, I’m sure of it,” Dean assures him, and Cas just lets out a groan.

“I’m horrible at it,” he mutters in misery, making Sam roll his eyes. Dean doesn’t miss that, so he figures it’s not the first time this has come out of Cas’ mouth.

“Cas, for the tenth time, everybody’s horrible at parenting at first,” Sam counters with a loud sigh. Dean just chuckles, enjoying the moment for now. He doesn’t remove his hand from Cas’ hair, and smiles back at Claire and Kevin, who simply smirk back at him in return. It feels great to have this little family here. It seems like Claire has really grown to care about them, which is something Dean would never have thought imaginable.

“I’m extra-horrible, then,” Cas groans. Dean just chuckles, and Sam throws his hands in the air but doesn’t answer at all. Instead, he starts asking questions about his progress; what the doctors have been saying, what he’s been doing these past two days, if that nervous nurse has been passing by again lately.

Dean answers everything; in the past three weeks his weight _has_ been going up, but still not enough for him to leave the hospital. On a better note, the feeding tube probably still has to stay for two more weeks but will be removed afterwards – and Dean just hopes that it won’t be as unpleasant as putting it in. He’s mostly been looking at TV or filling in crossword puzzles, and leaves out the part where he’s been thinking about Demons, and sure, the nervous nurse has been doing rounds on his wing and _has_ passed by again, blushing every time Dean just gives her a smile.

Cas groans at that last part, and everybody laughs at his reaction.

“My man’s getting jealous, how about that?” Dean jokes, earning him a light smack on the back of his head from Cas, who doesn’t lift his head from his husband’s shoulder at all.

“Your _man_ is probably just exhausted,” Sam clarifies. “I told you, man, I can easily take the twins for one night so you can catch up on some sleep-“

“No, I’m their father, I should be able to take care of them,” Cas counters, getting up immediately and letting go of Dean’s hand at last. “Really, I appreciate it, Sam, but I need to do this.”

“Cas, what you need to do is rest; you’ve only _just_ become human. Having your wings ripped _must_ still hurt? I mean, to us that would probably feel like having both arms removed!”

Cas stays quiet after that, as if Sam had just got it right that instant. His eyes are staring downwards, and his hands are nervously fumbling together, fingers twitching quickly.

“Castiel Winchester, have you been in pain this entire time?” Dean asks sternly, and the sudden increase of volume in his voice seem to stir the twins, who start fidgeting on Dean’s chest. Claire and Kevin both take one of them in their arms, and quickly bring them back into their carrier.

“I… might have failed to mention it, yes,” Cas admits with clear shame. Dean sighs loudly while shaking his head.

“Hey, uh, we’re going to take the boys on a walk, okay?” Claire asks right before leaving the room with the Prophet. Dean is glad for that, not really wanting the twins to be around for this. It still gives him an ache in his chest once they’re out of view, but he just has to get this over with.

“Cas, take off your shirt,” Dean says when Sam closes the door. The other Winchester sits down on the chair Kevin had just been in, and with his arms crossed he observes what’s happening here.

“I don’t-“ Cas starts, but Dean shakes his head.

“Take off that goddamn shirt!” He didn’t mean to shout, and he regrets it immediately when the wound on his chest hurts, but he can’t really stop it. Cas keeping secrets from him surely will get that reaction. The look on Cas’ eyes hurts, but Dean mostly tries to get over that.

When the former Angel pulls his shirt over his head and turns around, both Sam and Dean gasp in surprise at seeing the badly-healing wounds on Cas’ shoulder blades. The wounds are dark red, probably _still_ bleeding if Dean is seeing it right, and the whole area around it seems infected. Before he can say anything, he grabs the alarm bell and quickly presses the button, telling the nurses that he needs their help.

“Dean, don’t-“

“Shut up and let them take care of you,” Dean snaps. Cas lowers his shirt again in embarrassment, keeping his gaze far away from Dean’s. Might be for the better, since all Dean wants to do right now is just shout at him. How in the world would Cas not even think about mentioning this? It doesn’t even seem bearable to walk around like this.

In just a matter of seconds the nurse walks in. After seeing Cas’ wounds, she seems shocked but keeps herself in check, still calling out for a doctor. After _he_ arrives, Cas is laid down on the empty bed next to Dean’s, and the man and nurse both start thoroughly cleaning the wound.

It clearly hurts, but for now their priority seems for the infection to go away.

“How did this happen?” the man then eventually asks. Dean doesn’t find an answer immediately, and he sees Sam failing as well.

“I don’t really remember,” Cas then lies. It’s an obvious lie, but the doctor seems to understand that he shouldn’t ask about it. Dean silently watches as Cas is being treated, feeling a great wave of anger going through him at the idea that Cas has been walking around like this without every saying a word. Would he ever have spoken about it?

The doc finishes after about thirty minutes, having cleaned, disinfected and bandaged up the wounds.

“That’ll need to be cleaned daily,” the man starts while cleaning his hands again. “I can prescribe you a paper to get a nurse to come at your house-“

“No, I’ll be here every day anyway, better to have it done here,” Cas interrupts him as he puts his shirt back on. The doctor frowns a little bit, seeming confused – but Dean can understand that; first the man arrives in his patient’s room to found said patient’s husband having gigantic wounds on his shoulders. Wounds, by the way, that can’t be explained. With Cas being secretive like this, Dean, too, would find it suspicious.

“Okay, normally visiting hours are only in the afternoon, but I have rounds in the morning, around ten. Can you be here, then?”

Cas nods, and that instant the door opens, revealing Claire and Kevin returning with the twins. Dean jumps up the moment he hears the first cry. That’s one of his boys, clearly unsettled! All the alarms inside of him go off at the same time, and he only wishes he could jump out of the bed.

“Sorry, he’s been crying for the past five minutes and I couldn’t calm him down,” Claire says, apologetic. She hurries towards Dean and quickly hands him Alan. Dean’s heart is racing, eyes stuck on Alan’s unsettled face. Gently he shushes him, trying to rock him in his arms as much as he can.

Dean doesn’t even notice the doctor walking out of the room. All of his attention is stuck on his baby boy in his arms. Why is he crying? Was he lonely? Is he hungry? He doesn’t smell, so he surely doesn’t need a diaper change… Maybe he got scared about something?

“And Jonah?” Dean asks then, feeling Alan fuss in his arms, not showing any sign of calming down at all. Kevin holds up the carrier, which shows a still sleeping Jonah lying there.

“He’s been asleep the entire time,” the Prophet explains. “Whatever startled Alan, Jonah wasn’t awake to see it.”

“Good,” Dean mutters, hushing his child a few times more but failing miserably at it. Alan is grabbing Dean’s shirt in the meantime, the noise getting softer but Alan obviously not getting less distressed. “C’mon, baby boy, you’re safe in here…”

Dean turns his head a bit to the side, throwing his husband a questioning look. Cas appears helpless, as if he has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing here. Even when Dean nods at him to come closer, Cas seems to hesitate.

“Cas get your ass here and help me calm down our son,” Dean then snaps after a little while. Alan cries a little louder again, and Cas jumps in action, sitting down on the free space next to Dean and throwing his arm over Dean’s shoulder, resting his own hand behind Alan’s head.

Cas then quietly starts muttering words Dean doesn’t understand anything about. He recognizes it as Enochian, of course, but the meaning is lost to him. Despite the fact that the words pass over his head, Dean finds himself transfixed on the sound, as if Cas is simply hypnotizing everybody in the room along with Alan.

After a little while, Alan stops again, keeping one hand stuck on Dean’s shirt and lifting the other one’s in Cas’ direction. The former Angel then removes his own hand from behind Alan’s head, and he allows his son to grab his finger with his little ones.

“See? You’re not horrible at it at all,” Dean chuckles, seeing how Alan is staring at Cas with gigantic green eyes, looking at him like it’s the first time he’s ever seen him in his life. Cas, in the meantime, is clearly shocked at what he’s just accomplished. His mouth is fallen open, breath caught for a moment. Dean simply leans his head to the side and gives him a small kiss on the forehead.

“I just wish I could keep them here tonight…” Dean mutters lowly, seeing his brother’s face fall. That’s when he realizes he shouldn’t have brought it up; having them feeling guilty about his inability to spend time with his kids is not really how they should be spending their time today.

He pulls away from Cas’ head and forces out a smile to his brother, and then to Claire and Kevin, who are still standing there awkwardly with Jonah still close to them.

“Anyway, enough of that. Tell me, how have things been going?”

And though it’s clear that they see right through his attempt to distract, they all seem glad to follow along. As they all speak, time starts to fly again. Visiting hours last from two until eight pm, but with the twins and Cas being exhausted as he is, Dean sends them all home with pain in his heart.

After saying his goodbyes, Dean ends up alone in the room once more, looking at the other bed in his room, currently still unoccupied but surely not for long. Dean recalls his previous roommate – it had been a young man who came in for a heart-transplant. He hasn’t returned from the surgery, but Dean prefers to think that he’s just sent to post-operative care instead of lying down lifeless in a body-bag.

Around six his dinner is brought, which he eats without any complaint, despite the enormous amount of greens added to his plate. The dessert is enough compensation for that. After that, he watches some TV, and eventually his phone rings for his daily phone-call with Cas before they go to sleep.

The length of the calls can vary from day to day. Some days they’re both just too tired to keep on talking and they hang up pretty quickly. Other days they’re able to chat on and on for hours until the nurse of the night-shift tells him that it’s time to go to sleep – he’s been here long enough to know that she arrives around ten in the evening, but only starts her rounds at eleven.

But his days, lately, have been going the same way… At six he’s awoken to have his vitals checked. At seven, his medication is served along with his breakfast. His extra nutrition is added to the pump attached to the tube through his nose, and they empty the bag that collects his pee (yes, it has taken him a little while to get over that). Sometimes they draw a blood-sample or urine-sample, but for now that’s only limited to once a week.

After breakfast, the nurses help him with washing himself – he can do most things by himself, but since he’s not allowed to get out of bed yet, he needs their help. It has been awkward as hell at first, but now it’s just daily routine he just better has to get out of the way instead of thinking too much about it. After washing, his wounds are cleaned – those being the incisions on his lower belly and the entire length of his chest. Cas has already told him that those will leave enormous scars that _won’t_ fade, but after everything, that’s honestly something he’s not all that sorry for

After that, he’s mostly on his own until ten, when the doctors arrive and come and check him out. Two times a week a psychiatrist comes to talk to him, and each time he manages to twist his story enough to keep it believable. Once a week, a diet-expert comes by to discuss the latest changes in his feeding patterns. The nurses change the fluids of his IV at noon right before he gets his lunch, and more mediation is served.

At two, visiting hours start. Mostly, Sam, Cas and the boys come, but since Dean made them promise not to come _each_ day, it’s mostly every two days. On the days they’re not here, Dean keeps himself busy catching up to his shows or reading up some more. Much to his surprise, he’s even gotten a visit from Anna – though a short one, since Dean didn’t have much to say to her.

Though now as well, with Cas on the other side of the line of the phone, Dean finds himself short of words. It’s clearly one of those days, so it seems. Of course, they’ve talked a lot already today, so it’s normal that they’re a bit more quiet right now.

Cas explains that he surrendered and allowed Sam to take care of the twins this night, obviously needing a good night of sleep.

“ _Lauren even adored the idea_ ,” Cas adds to it with a light chuckle right before yawning. That, in turn, makes Dean yawn as well. When the nurse comes in with a new IV bag, Dean just nods at her and allows her to do her job.

“Yeah, well, you should start to take care of yourself. You’re only human, after all,” Dean says, unable to say what he really meant with the woman standing next to him. She offers him a smile as she strategically changes the bags and controls the speed at which the drops fall.

“ _Thank you for reminding me_ ,” Cas mutters dryly.

“You know I meant nothing by it. Also, the nurse is here,” Dean says, offering that as an explanation of the blunt way he spoke before. He knows Cas being human is still a sore spot for the former Angel, but saying something like ‘ _You’re human now’_ or _‘you’re no longer an Angel, Cas’_ could definitely land him straight into the psychiatric ward instead of cardio-thoracics. 

“ _Right, do you need me to hang up?”_ Cas asks, catching up immediately. Dean shakes his head, knowing that his husband can’t see that at all. When the nurse leaves the room, he thanks her quickly.

“No, it’s fine, I’m alone again,” he quickly responds. With his medication for the evening set, Dean rests his head back and starts to close his eyes while imagining Cas is lying right next to him. With his voice so close to his ear, it really helps a lot.

“ _Good,”_ Cas says, and then it’s quiet for a little while as both men take a deep breath. Dean squeezes his eyes shut, letting out another yawn, quietly enough for Cas not to hear it.

“So how is your evening off?” Dean asks. He rubs his eyes once more before dropping his head back on the pillow. It’s going to be an early night, he quickly realizes. With the weakened state of his body, all he can really do is sleep until he’s gained enough strength to walk around again. But so far, though, there hasn’t even been a hint on when he’s allowed to do that once more.

After four weeks in bed, one would think it’s time, no? But no, the combination of his weight-loss and the heart-damage that he’s been through is enough for them to worry. His heart muscle is still too weak, and walking around prematurely could cause for another failure. One Death won’t bring him back from.

“ _It’s quiet. I haven’t been alone in a while. I’m not used to it anymore,”_ Cas answers, sounding a bit sad. Dean lets out an even deeper sigh than before, understanding exactly what Cas is talking about.

“When I get back, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Dean promises him, feeling strangely optimistic about his stay in this place. He’d much rather go back home right now, but he already knows that, as soon as he’s out of the danger zone when it comes to cardiac reasons, he’ll be put into the psychiatric ward for further treatment of his so called ‘eating disorders’. Since Dean can’t tell them the full story, either, it’s surely going to take a while for him to be allowed back outside.

“ _Dean, I’ve been thinking,”_ Cas then starts, sounding pensive. Dean tries to turn to his side but doesn’t manage too well when his chest aches again. That scar is really going to take a while to heal. “ _When you get back, are we planning on hunting again now that the boys are in the picture?”_

Dean frowns at the question, figuring that Cas makes a valid point bringing this up. Back when he thought he was actually dying, he had already made peace with the fact that there won’t be any more hunting career for him. Things were just too dangerous with the twins, and afterwards he would have been too dead.

But now he’s alive and almost well, and once he’s recovered he should be fit to get right back into the game, right?

Though now the twins are there, and Dean is quickly reminded of his own childhood. He has been raised as a hunter, exactly something his mother never wanted for him. He can remember the disappointed look on her face once he told her that one time Anna tried to kill her. The expression on Mary’s face had been heart-wrenching when she realized that her sons had been raised the very same way she wanted to avoid for them.

 _They say the road ain’t no place to start a family_ , comes into his head, but it is possible, right? He and Sam turned out alright, so it couldn’t be _that_ bad?

But while it is possible, it’s not the best life; especially not the kind of life they should be trying to live. Gabriel has already warned them that there are going to be rogue Angels that will try and destroy the twins. Danger is in every corner or in every bush in the park. If they have a place they can completely ward off against Angels, things will be safe; they’ll just have to make sure that the twins don’t attract too much attention to themselves, and it’s possible that they might have to live under a false name. They should figure out what Gabriel has to say about this.

But being hunters, still… it might attract unwanted attention to them. If the Angels don’t find them, other monsters will. And those that escape can still talk…

“I think-“ Dean starts, not believing his own words as he speaks them. What he has been hating every second of for the past few months, now just seems the only bitter reality that there is. “I think it’s best not to hunt anymore.”

Cas stays quiet on the other line, as if he’s just as much surprised as Dean is. Then Dean hears him take a deep breath.

“ _Do you promise?”_ he asks, as if it’s the only thing that has been on his mind for quite some time. Sure, he has agreed not to hunt in the past few months, but now… Cas seems adamant at making Dean _vow_ to retire. As if that’s all that matters now…

“Cas?” he asks, not really sure if what he heard was right.

“ _Do you_ promise _?”_ he repeats, but a little louder this time. Dean swallows, frowning a little bit. He knows the answer is clear; he’s the one who suggested in in the first place. He shouldn’t pretend to keep thinking about something he already knows the answer to.

“I promise,” he says with a sigh. “If you promise, as well.”

Cas seems less hesitant about it, though. “ _I promise_.” He says quickly, and that’s that. It’s decided. Their lives are going to be boringly _normal_ now… heck, Dean might even need to get a job if he doesn’t want to go crazy inside the walls of the bunker. Are they even staying there? Or should they move to a house of their own? It sounds good enough, but the idea of leaving the safe interior of the bunker gives him chills at the same time. No way are they going to manage to ward a house against all the monsters much like the bunker has been.

Not unless… they build a house of their own? Sure, it might take a while, but at least they wouldn’t have to buy a house, knock down walls and change its entire infrastructure. They could even get something close to the bunker…

Though those are ideas for later on. Right now, he should focus on the phone-call he’s having with his husband. But, as it turns out, Cas is much more exhausted than he had led on. By the time Dean is paying attention again, he can hear the peaceful breathing on the other side of the line. Cas is asleep, that much is clear.

Dean smiles weakly and shakes his head before letting out another sigh.

“Good night, I love you, Cas.”

“ _Hmmmmpf,”_ comes on the other line, but Dean recognizes it as nothing more than just another sigh from Cas. That’s when Dean hangs up the phone and decides to get to sleep as well.

 

* * *

 

 

_Meanwhile, Men of Letters Bunker_

 

By the time Sam is finally sitting down on his bed, is already past midnight.

Lauren is next to him, dropping herself down on the bed with a groan equally tired as Sam’s. But despite their fatigue, they try not to make too much noise. Taking care of the twins this evening also means that their cribs have been moved to Sam’s room for the time being. Sam can remember clearly enough how he and Kevin took the cribs out of Dean and Cas’ room while the former Angel was taking a shower. He never really had any say in it, but when Lauren had then revealed that they would take care of them for now, Cas hadn’t really complained. The thanks he had expressed in a soft sound even still takes Sam by surprise.

It’s clear to see that the guy is exhausted, and in a lot of pain. It wouldn’t have been right _not_ to help him out here.

“Are you sure those two are half Angel?” Lauren asks in a whisper while lying down on her back, her hand resting on her stomach. Another yawn escapes her mouth. Sam snorts in response.

“The fact that they’re half Angel is exactly the reason why they _don’t_ need sleep that badly,” he answers. “I mean, I suppose it’s logical, right?”

“Urgh, don’t give me logic, I just need sleep,” Lauren responds jokingly. Then she rolls over onto her stomach and crawls further into the bed right before throwing the blanket over her. Sam yawns once more, but quickly goes to turn off the light before joining Lauren in the bed.

For a few minutes they stay quiet, listening to the soft breathing coming out of the two cribs further away. Jonah, who is a little bit fussier than Alan, makes a few quiet noises in his sleep. For a moment, Sam is afraid that he’s awake again. He really _doesn’t_ want to start tucking him in once more.

“Have you seen Claire and Kevin today?” Lauren suddenly asks when Sam has his arms wrapped around her.

“Well, yeah, we’ve been to the hospital with them, right?” Sam asks, recalling very well how the teenager and the young-adult had joined them today. “Why?”

“No I mean, have you paid attention to how they were together? Were they… close?”

Sam stays quit while thinking that through. He hasn’t really looked into that at all, only worrying about his brother at that moment. Sure, Claire and Kevin seem like good friends, but he could never really imagine something else coming out of that? There hasn’t even been any reason to think that, right?

“To be honest, Lau, I think Kevin is still trying to get over the fact that Gabriel is a guy once more before he can fancy another girl,” Sam jokes, and Lauren laughs before the two gasp for breath and keep quiet once more. Good, the twins still sleep.

“Yeah, poor guy. Never really had a chance with him now, did he?” she says in a whisper. Sam snorts and presses his face closer against her neck. The face Kevin made when Gabriel came back once more, returned in his familiar former vessel… Kevin had immediately asked where the girl was, and Gabriel had only said that she was back in Spain, where he took her from in the first place.

They stay quiet after that, mostly just basking in to the silence they’re finding themselves in. It’s not that the boys are noisy, really, but with having to lie down all the time without being tired, they get fussy sometimes and rile each other up. Even putting them together in the same crib doesn’t really help then.

“Hmmmm, I could really use some hot chocolate now, actually,” Lauren suddenly calls out. Sam snorts once more, knowing she’s only joking; they’ve just brushed their teeth. There’s no way she’s going to drink something if that would mean she would have to go brush them again.

“I’ll make you one tomorrow,” Sam tells her before pressing another kiss on the back of her neck. Lauren chuckles and turns around a bit.

“Will you get me one, now?” she jokes. At least, Sam thinks she’s joking, but the moment their eyes meet, he lets out a short breath and starts to get out of the bed. Lauren then frowns, sitting up the moment Sam is back on his feet.

“What are you doing?” she asks in confusion. Sam wonders why she even questions it; he’s going to get her that hot chocolate right now. She asked him for it, and he wouldn’t be a good boyfriend if he wouldn’t help her out, now, would he?

“I’m getting you your drink,” Sam says, already reaching for the door. Lauren then jumps up and grabs his arm.

“Stop! I was only joking, Sam! You know I just brushed my teeth?” Sam can see the worry on her face, and he wonders why that’s for? He’s feeling perfectly fine? There’s nothing wrong here, right?

“But you want hot chocolate?” he tries, utterly confused. Every part in his body is telling him to prepare that drink and bring it to her.

“No, Sam. I want you to get back into bed and hold me close. And don’t you dare get up like that again!” she counters. Sam lets out another breath and his tense shoulders relax once more. Then, afterwards, his entire body moves back to the bed, and without thinking too much about it, he holds her close once more. Lauren doesn’t say anything anymore except for a quick goodnight, but underneath his hand Sam can feel her heart beat wildly.

She falls asleep almost immediately, but the same can’t be said for Sam, who ends up fidgeting more often than not. His entire body starts to feel uncomfortable, and he notices immediately that he really needs to pee. And while his mind knows that means he has to get up, his body doesn’t cooperate. His arms don’t let go of Lauren, and when he tries to shuffle away a little bit, instead he gets closer to her.

“What are you doing, Sam?” Lauren asks when it has been going on for another half hour. The hunter clears his throat before speaking.

“I need to pee,” he admits. Lauren turns her face to him and frowns. She looks extremely tired, and Sam feels guilty for keeping her up like that.

“Then why aren’t you getting up?” she asks in confusion. Sam shakes his head.

“I just… can’t,” he reveals. Lauren sits up then, but even then, Sam doesn’t let go of her, making it a very awkward position.

“Sam, let go of me,” she tells him. Sam’s arms immediately obey, letting go of the embrace and pulling back. Lauren’s eyes go wide at that, and Sam, too, understands that something is not really right here.

 “Get out of the bed,” she then says dryly, and at once, Sam is up. Lauren’s mouth falls open in surprise. “Sam, rub your belly once for me?”

“Why would I do that?” he asks, not really understanding what she’s asking of him. “There’s no reason for me to-“

“Then why are you doing it?” she asks. “Sam if you’re playing a trick on me, it’s not funny.”

Sam looks down, seeing his hand indeed rub his stomach, almost the same way Dean did back when he was pregnant. When Sam wants to stop and pull his hand back, he finds that he can’t.

“Uh,” he mutters out.

“Damnit Sam, stop it!” she almost shouts out, but it’s enough noise for the boys to wake up again. Sam doesn’t know which one of the two starts crying first, but the two of them are quickly back on their feet to go check on them.

Great, it took them so long to get them to sleep, and now they have to start all over again. This is just fantastic. Sam sighs, shaking off whatever happened back then… for now.

He knows they need to talk about it, but right now isn’t the time for it. He’s got his nephews to worry about again.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean has always been a light sleeper; the smallest noise could wake him up, and more often than not did he open his eyes with his hand under his pillow, ready to point it out at the person that dares to pull him out of his sleep.

He’s practically been trained this way by his father; he doesn’t know anything else, really. He can remember how many times the man stood by his bed, screaming at random times in the night to see how quick Dean’s reflexes were. Sam got the very same training, as well, and Dean even dares to admit that his brother’s senses are even quicker than his own.

Now, though, as Dean has finally fallen into a deep slumber after his phone call with Cas, he finds himself fishing underneath his pillow, searching for a gun or a knife he knows isn’t actually there. Why isn’t it there? Right, he’s at the hospital. There’s no reason for him to have a weapon…

But why is he awake now?

“Mr. Winchester?”

Oh, right, somebody calling his name.

It hurts too much on his chest to sit up quickly, so instead he finds himself turning his head towards the source of the noise, finding the nurse of the night shift entering his room carefully, as if she’s afraid to anger him.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Mr. Winchester, but I need to check your vitals one more time if that’s alright,” the woman says gently. Dean frowns for a moment and then drops his face back down on the pillow with a light grunt.

“What for? I thought everything was alright?” he wonders out loud; he remembers well enough how that nurse told him specifically that his blood pressure was alright and his pulse was beating the normal amount of beats per minute.

“They didn’t write it down in your file, so I just need to do this quickly so I can complete your file, is that alright?”

Dean turns his head to the other side to catch the clock, finding that it’s three in the night. How can this even be so important? Though without any further complaints, Dean shifts himself in the bed until his arm is free enough for her to use. The woman walks closer with the device that gets his blood pressure. She puts the band around his arm, and warns him before she starts pumping the thing with air, making it tighten up around him.

Dean doesn’t react much, instead just keeps his head on the pillow and eyes on the woman next to him. He’s never seen her before, but then again, he’s never seen many of the night nurses unless they had to get a blood sample. The card on her uniform tells him her name is Ara, and she looks young enough in Dean’s eyes, probably recently graduated. What drove her to work at night permanently, Dean would never know.

“Blood pressure is eleven over seven, which is good,” she says after releasing the band around his arm. Dean grunts in agreement, waiting for her to put the sensor on his finger now for the pulse. But that’s when he catches it. Only for a small second, but he’s seen it often enough to know what it means.

Her eyes turn black.

Shit, normally, he would jump up and start fighting her, but he knows he’s at a serious disadvantage now. He’s not even allowed to walk yet, so how could he even compete against her. Right now, she doesn’t know he’s aware of her presence, but it won’t be long. After all, there’s only _one_ reason for demons to be here.

What happened to the warding? Did it fail? Did the Angels just forget to add demon-related stuff, thinking only of other Angels attacking them? Is this why Alan burst out in tears earlier today? Did he see a demon, and did he get unsettled?

“Pulse is alright,” the woman says, but suddenly the tone in her voice sounds differently. More… as if she’s biting the words at him. Dean knows that, if he’s going to act, he needs to do it now.

“ _Exorcizamus te,”_ he starts, and the nurse starts hissing. He feels the slap against his face before he can even see it, and then suddenly he’s pulled out of the bed. The stitches on his chest sting, and his ribs clearly disagree of the movement. He still manages to grit out a bit more of the exorcism. “ _Omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas.”_

Then suddenly, there’s a hand pressed against his mouth. Now, this is a way of shutting him up that demons have never really used before. Normally they just choke him.

“You know, when I heard that the one and only _Dean Winchester_ was in the hospital after _giving birth_ to Nephilims, I couldn’t believe it. It sounded like a dream come true.”

Dean tries to talk further, but the hand against his mouth prevents him for forming any more words.

“I mean, us demons are banished in Hell for almost two years, and when we get back, you’re married with kids? Come on, I wouldn’t have guessed this would happen.”

Dean tries to gasp for breath, but his entire chest feels like it’s burning. His face is probably beet red from the lack of air. Who-ever this demon is, and whatever she wants, Dean doesn’t know. The only Demon they ever worked with was Meg, and she’s dead as far as Dean knows.

“Now, you don’t recognize me? It’s probably because of my new meatsuit,” the demon says with a grin. Then, her face turns innocent and her eyes go big. Then, as she speaks, her accent changes greatly. “I mean, those hellhounds ripped mine to shreds right after we finished our phone call.”

British? Wait, no way… Hellhounds? The only British person Dean remembers being killed by Hellhounds is…

Bela…

“Oh, now you remember me, huh?” she asks, finally releasing his mouth and allowing Dean to breathe deeply. “Also, I’ve seen your husband. He’s handsome, in a way. He still smells of Angel, though, so not really my type.”

“What do you want?” Dean asks in a breathy whisper. Bela just snorts and drops him back down on the ground. The fall hurts him all over his body, and a painful shout escapes his lips. He’s sure there are bruises forming on his face from the strong hold she had on his cheeks. How is he going to explain this to Cas or Sam? Is he even going to live that long?

“Me? I just wanted to see the jerk that managed to escape Hell while I kept on rotting in there,” Bela snaps. Her foot kicks angrily in his side, and Dean grunts out in pain again. “I wanted to see the guy who didn’t help me escape from Hell, even though he _knew_ he was going to meet the same fate.”

Another kick, this time in his lower abdomen.

“And I wanted to see your face when I tell you that, next on my list, are those precious little boys and that handsome husband of yours.”

“No!” Dean shouts at her, not caring if he’s waking up the entire hallway of the ward. “Bela you don’t know what they’re capable of. They’ll burn you out with just a touch on your face!”

Yes, scare her off. Make her understand that the twins are stronger than even an Angel, and that they can burn her down easily with just a snap of their fingers – if they would be able to control their powers, that is.

“I’ll take my chances,” she says with a smirk. Right, now is probably the time to continue the exorcism.

“ _Omnis incursion infernalis adversarii, omnis congregation et secta diabolica,”_ Dean calls out despite the new kick to his side. Then Bela lifts him back up, holding him tightly at his throat and chocking the air out of him.

“ _Ergo, draco maledicte,”_ he peeps out further, but that when his breath leaves him. White spots start forming in front of his eyes, and he knows that he’s close to losing consciousness. _Anna, Hannah, Gabriel, who-ever… Just help!_

“Just give it up, Dean. I’m not allowing you to continue that little exorcism of yours,” Bela mutters to him. Dean scratches at her hands, trying to pull free but failing miserably at it. When there’s a sound of wings flapping behind her, her eyes open wide in surprise.

“ _Ut ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias liberate servire, te rogamus,”_ the familiar voice of Anna says from the door opening. Over Bela’s shoulder, Dean can see the Angel stand in the hallway, unable to get inside with the warding that is put up all over the room. She looks pissed off, probably angry at how she couldn’t stop this from happening.

“No!” Bela calls out angrily, finally letting go of Dean and dropping him back down on the ground. This time he lands right next to the door, close enough to Anna. “No! Shut up!”

“ _Audi nos,”_ Anna finishes, and then the vessel opens up her mouth, and Bela’s new true form comes escaping right out of it. The black smoke looks like a dark cloud, or maybe just some poisoned gas. With stinging eyes, Dean watches it disappear back into the ground as Bela is banished back into the Hell she just escaped from.

“Holy crap,” he mutters out before lying himself back down on the ground, his eyes staring back at the ceiling. His whole body hurts all over, and he’s sure that his barely healed ribs are back to being bruised or even broken. That Bela bitch can land a pretty hard kick.

“Are you alright, Dean?” Anna asks, hurrying towards him and kneeling down when she’s reached him.

“Yeah, I’m peachy,” Dean answers with a grunt. When Anna holds out her hand towards his head, much the same way Cas did often, Dean forces himself to roll away from her. “No, you can’t heal me.”

“Why not? You’re in pain, Dean!” Anna calls out. She sounds genuinely concerned here, appearing almost human again.

“Yeah, that I am, but I’d rather be in pain than taken away by Death,” Dean clarifies. How is it that Anna isn’t aware of his pact with the Horseman? She looks actually confused here before eventually nodding. Dean is sure she still doesn’t understand it, but he’s not exactly in the mood to explain it to her now.

“I need to warn Castiel,” she says. Dean wants to disagree, to say that she shouldn’t worry him, but he knows the man is going to see him like this the next day, or maybe the day after that. There’s no way that he will be healed enough to hide all this away.

“Just… give me some invisible marker or something, I need to make a devil’s trap for future visitors,” Dean mutters.

“Actually, I can take care of that,” Anna says, and then she points the palm of her hand towards the floor where Dean is seated, and she’s muttering a few words he doesn’t understand. Then, on the floor underneath him, a glowing symbol appears. It’s one that Dean hasn’t seen before, but he knows already that it’s one to ward off Demons.

“Thanks, I’ll just… go back to bed I suppose…” Dean whispers after the glowing stops. With trouble, he gets himself back up, knowing that Anna can’t come inside.

“I’ll get the nurse,” she offers as a solution, and before Dean can stop her, she’s off, searching for the woman. Dean groans and drops back down on the ground, feeling as if his stitches, which have been closed for almost an entire week, have all just opened again. He had actually forgotten how long healing takes when it happens the normal way.

“Oh my God, what happened here?” is suddenly called out, and Dean sees the curvy figure of the night nurse appear in his room. He recognizes her immediately, having seen her a few times in the morning already.

“I just…” Dean starts, but he doesn’t know how to explain it all. Then his eyes drop to the other, unconscious, nurse lying on the floor right where Bela left her. Great, now _she_ is going to get in trouble because of all this.

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll help you back to bed,” the woman suddenly says, as if somebody just pulled a switch inside of her. Dean can catch Anna standing in the doorway, pressing her fingers against her forehead and staring the woman down in that intense way Cas sometimes does. Or… did… whatever.

With trouble, they manage to get Dean back in bed. She cleans up his new wounds, and takes care of his opened stitches. While the woman is bandaging him back up again and giving him some painkillers for his chest, Dean watches how the other nurses – the assistance she called for – drag the unconscious woman away from the room. He heard them mention a few times that they’ve never seen her in this hospital before, but Dean decides not to think too much about it. He’s sure Anna will take care of the cover story. Right now, all he wants to do is to sleep it off.

But even as everybody leaves his room, and as he’s holding a sleeping pill in his hand, Dean hesitates on taking it in. He’s never really used one of those before, but he’s pretty sure they’ll make him fall asleep instantly. At least, that’s what he’s hoping for.

Before he takes it in, though, his mind passes back over his newly-made promise from a few hours ago. From back when he was on the phone with Cas.

Sure, maybe he won’t be actively looking for hunts, but even he knows that doesn’t mean the hunts won’t be looking for them. It’s _impossible_ for him to get out of it, completely. There will always be somebody wanting revenge. Even more so now that the Demons are back. Dean is sure they all want him dead, after all.

Dean knows that he promised Cas not to get himself in danger like that anymore, but in the end, even he knows that sometimes it’s unavoidable. There’s no way for him to get away from it.

Once a hunter, always a hunter…

 

 


	2. I’ll do the dishes for an entire week

Lauren has questions.

When a person has questions, one needs to do is to simply ask them, and wait for the answer that surely somebody must have. When nobody nearby has an answer it’s a whole different matter, though.

The reason why Lauren doesn’t just ask is not because she thinks nobody knows the answer; it’s probably because she’s afraid of what she will get to hear. Afraid of her reaction, and what it will bring to other people.

She’s not in control. Has she ever been?

The day after it happened, she doesn’t mention it to Sam at all. She simply brings the twins back to Castiel, who seems extremely well rested. It’s such a contrary image to what she’s feeling.

When Sam asks her what’s wrong, she keeps quiet. When Castiel does the same, she simply shakes her head and smiles. Her mouth stays shut the entire day. When she goes to visit Dean and finds him beaten and bruised, she barely keeps herself from expressing her concern.

After two days of barely speaking, questions arise. Lauren shrugs in response and points towards her throat. Fake sickness, is probably the best she can do. That is, until she can figure out what exactly is wrong with her.

 _Gabriel_. That’s the first thing her mind tells her. She needs to talk to Gabriel.

The problem is, they’ve barely spoken in the past. Gabriel probably doesn’t even know she exists. Even if she will pray, he probably won’t show up at all. Not that he did with Sam, Dean or Cas, either.

Still, she will try praying. She’ll try every day, until she finds a summoning spell somewhere.

And if somehow he shows up along the way, then maybe she can find the answers.

But will she want to hear them?

* * *

 

 

_September 6 th  
Nine weeks_

A new doctor comes to greet Dean in the morning. It’s a woman, in about her forties, with long black hair put back in a braid and bright blue glasses on top of her nose. _Chief of cardiothoracic surgery_ , the woman had introduced herself, but as long as Dean can’t catch a look at her name plate, he wouldn’t be able to say what she’s called.

Of course, he knows that a new doctor introducing themselves only means trouble. In the past few days, he had been taken away for quite a few tests to check out his heart, which is why he’s not too surprised to see a cardiothoracic surgeon introducing herself to him as the doctors make their rounds. He can even remember that one test where he had to swallow a tube so they could make an ultrasound from the inside out. It really was an unpleasant process, and he would rather not live through that one more time.

As it is, he’s gained a bit of weight already, but still not enough to be allowed home. His bones still poke out from under his skin, and his face is still hollow. Though while on the outside he looks bad, on the inside he feels even worse. Yesterday, Cas didn’t bring the twins when he visited, meaning that it’s almost been two days since last he’s seen them. Even though it’s not that long a time, he still feels it deep inside; that yearning to see his boys. He wonders if it’s his connection to their Grace that makes it so?

Anyway, he’s getting distracted already, but that’s probably because of the explanation he’s getting from the doctor. Dean squints a little bit when her badge gets back in sight, and there he catches her last name. Dr. Volia. Great, now he wouldn’t have to keep on calling her ‘the heart doc’ inside his head.

Dean catches only a small bit of her explanation, but one word makes him look up at last, tilting his head a bit to the side as he tries to place the term.

“A failure in my heart valves?” he asks, not able to put any other disease onto it other than maybe an infection.

“Yes, your mitral valve to be precise. A mitral valve prolapse is quite often seen with patients of your condition, and if found early enough, it’s still treatable without surgery,” Doctor Volia says. Dean nods, glad to hear that.

“Good,” he says, daring to let out a small smile.

“Although,” Dr Volia continues, and Dean sighs immediately. He should have known that it wouldn’t be the same for him. Of course… “It’s safe to say that this problem has been going on for a while now, meaning that we shouldn’t wait too long on fixing the problem. Now, I think that healing it with gaining weight would not be fast enough.”

“Aren’t there any meds?” Dean asks, hopeful enough. He just doesn’t want to go back under the knife.

“There are, and I would like to add them to your medication list. We follow up on how your situation improves. If it goes too slow still, surgery might be needed though, if we want to preserve your own valve.”

Great, Dean thinks as he leans his head back on the pillow. For the past two weeks he’s been happy to be walking around again. To hear that now he might risk being cut open once more really ends up being the biggest bummer of them all.

Well, at least they took out the catheter and the feeding tube. He’s once more able to pee in the toilet, thank you very much. Sure, at first he had to train the sphincters of his bladder once more to stop himself from peeing all over the place, but that’s a period he doesn’t want to talk about anymore.

Taking the catheter out had been necessary after Bela’s attack. Due to her forcibly pulling him out of the bed and throwing him around, the thing got disconnected to the bag and in turn wasn’t sterile anymore. When the nurses had called the doctor to ask if he would need a new one – which he had dreaded the entire phone call – the guy had told them to just remove it. On that specific day, the man had allowed for Dean to get out of the bed at last. Of course, Bela’s added injuries made that quite a difficult process, since moving hurt him in the chest even more than before.

Or, at least he thought that was from Bela beating him, but according to Doctor Volia, that is just another symptom from this new valve disease he’s experiencing. Great, healing is going to take forever now.

“Hey, keep cutting me open as the very last resort, please,” Dean says, trying to laugh it off but literally feeling nauseous at even the idea of it.

“That is our intention, Mr. Winchester. Now I’ll add the medications to your list. Be aware that there might be side-effects from them, so always be completely honest about how you’re feeling. If you keep your pains or complaints to yourself, we wouldn’t know if we’d have to change your list or not.”

Right, Dean remembers he’s already gotten the reputation of the least-complaintive patient lying in this specific department.

“Sure, I’ll speak up,” Dean says then. For years he’s been one for hiding his pain to appear stronger for Sam. That way, his little brother wouldn’t have to worry about him, instead letting him take care of him. Mostly when he talked about pain, it was in a joking matter. He’s pretty sure, though, that the doctors won’t really appreciate him laughing about it all again.

The doctor leaves after that, and immediately the nurse enters, holding a large bag in her hand. It’s something he’s been getting a few times a day for the past few days. After the incident with Bela, the feeding tube had been taken out as well. Instead, they’ve opted to offer him nutrition through the blood. That way, it would be easier for Dean to eat normally as well. Dean mostly just enjoys the freedom of not having a tube shoved through his nose, though.

“Hello, Mr. Winchester. I’m here to hang up your new TPN,” the woman says, holding out the huge bag with three compartments. She once explained to him what they all were, but hasn’t caught much of it. All he knows is that there are two transparent parts and one white part.

“Okay,” Dean says, leaning back a bit in his bed and allowing the nurse to change the bags. After she finishes, she offers him a small smile and heads out of the room.

 _Alright_ , Dean thinks to himself. _Now what am I gonna do as I wait for my boys to get here?_ There’s not much to do, though. The TV is only showing boring stuff this early in the morning, and the newspapers Sam and Cas previously brought have all been read about two times. It had been hard to ignore the potential hunts, but he knows it was necessary. Someone else will figure that one out, he assured himself at that time.

Dean figures he might as well take a little walk outside. Already dressed for the day, he puts on his shoes carefully, trying not to hurt himself by moving too quickly. Then he takes his cellphone, puts it in the pocket of his jogging pants, and gets out of the door from his room with his hand holding the IV-holder tightly.

 _Hey Anna, Hannah, who-ever, I’m heading out. I’ll see you at the entrance in five_ , he thinks to himself, knowing that one of the ladies is listening. Really, he’d rather have any other Angel, knowing his past with Anna, and Hannah’s past crush on Cas. Last time Dean had seen Hannah, all he was able to think was ‘ _You kissed my husband while he was already my husband. You should have known better Hannah._ ’

Much to his surprise, though, it isn’t one of the two that awaits him at the entrance of the hospital. As Dean pushes himself and his IV-holder through the door, he finds the one and only Balthazar standing there outside, keeping his arms in a crossed position and staring at him with a raised eyebrow.

Okay, Dean takes it back. He’d rather have Anna or Hannah than him. Everybody’s better than Balthazar.

“On a walk now, are we?” the Angel asks, his stupid accent thick on his stupid voice. Out of all the Angels, Balthazar really is the one Dean has missed the less.

“Needed some fresh air. It helps with healing,” Dean says with a shrug, putting his hands inside his pockets as he comes to stand still. Balthazar just snorts.

“Taking your health back into your own two hands? My, my, wouldn’t Cassie be proud of you,” he mutters, pushing himself off the wall and starting to walk towards the parking lot in front of the hospital. Dean sighs and silently follows him.

He would much rather just go outside alone, but he’s been forbidden by about _everybody_ he knows. Angels know where he is, meaning that he’s an easy target the moment he steps out of the safe space of his room.

“Yeah, well, my heart strongly seems to show me how unhappy it is with my past choice of lifestyle,” Dean sighs, gazing forward in silence. In the pond in front of him, a few ducks start eating away the crumbs of bread an extremely skinny and bald child is throwing at them. The kid is also connected to an IV, and its father is standing behind them, looking extremely exhausted.

“I’m sure your brother would tell you he told you so, then,” Balthazar jokes. Dean turns his head towards the Angel, raising an eyebrow as he inspects the figure next to him.

“Talking about brothers, have you talked to yours already?” Dean asks. He catches Balthazar’s eyes go wide right before the Angel tries to hide it away again. Just for a few milliseconds, he seems to be frozen on the spot. “I suppose you haven’t?”

“I have nothing to say to him. My mission is to protect the offspring you’ve created together and that’s all,” Balthazar bites at him bitterly. Dean just snorts and shakes his head. Then he looks down, once again enjoying the fact that he can see his own two feet once more.

“Sure, whatever you say, Balthy,” Dean teases him, earning him a sour look from the Angel he’s lately come to discover is also kind of his brother-in-law. Kind of. If the Angels _have_ to be his in-laws, at least he could have done without Balthazar, really. “So, what’s holding my favorite sisters-in-law?”

Balthazar then snorts while shaking his head.

“Somehow, the hospital has mistaken Anna as an actual doctor and Hannah as a nurse. They’re currently busy delivering a baby,” he says loudly, clearly amused by this. “You should have seen their faces; they have _no_ idea how to do that! I’m sure Gabriel has something to do with it, though, that bastard!”

Dean casts a long look at the Angel upon the mention of Gabriel. It’s been a while since that dick has shown his face again, the last time being right after he woke up to show he’s back to how they knew him in the past. Much has happened in the past few weeks, but at the same time it seems like nothing has changed.

“Have you heard about Gadreel?” Dean then asks, remembering the sadness in Cas’ voice when he announced that Abner had been killed. He has no idea what happened with Gadreel after that; he just disappeared.

“No, the last person to hear from him is Gabriel, and _he_ said Gadreel had the pleasure of meeting _dad_ ,” Balthazar shrugs.

“Huh, I wonder what that’s about,” Dean mutters to himself. When they then find themselves back to the entrance of the hospital, Dean realizes they’ve done a circle around the building. There’s not much to see outside, mostly just patients enjoying their cigarette outside. Dean wisely stays away from them, not needing the smell calling him on. He knows Cas would strangle him if he would put up another cigarette in his life.

“Dean?” a voice calls out from behind them. Dean immediately turns around, seeing Cas walk up to them while pushing the stroller forward. Dean recognizes the thing as the gift Jody got them right after they were born, and a smile shows up on his face immediately.

“Cas!” Dean calls out, heading to his husband and kids without hesitation. He moves so fast, he’s almost forgotten his IV holder, only remembering it when he feels something pulling at his collarbone. The moment he joins the others, he offers a quick kiss to Cas before leaning down into the stroller where he finds Alan stare back up at him with big eyes while Jonah is still asleep. They haven’t smiled yet, but according to the books Linda has offered him, it shouldn’t be much longer until they will.

“What are you doing outside?” Cas asks when Dean fishes Alan out of the stroller and holds him close to his chest. A happy sound escapes the nine-week-old baby, and he grabs a part of his father’s shirt into his tiny little hands.

“Ah, the Doc just came for a visit. I just needed to get out for a bit afterwards,” Dean says, walking forward along with Cas, back to where Balthazar is standing. The Angel looks annoyed enough, but wisely keeps his mouth shut.

“What did he say?” Cas asks.

“She, actually. It was the one for my heart. Apparently, I have a faulty valve,” Dean explains plainly. He isn’t really in the mood to repeat all her big words. “She’s giving me more medication, but if it’s not helping quickly enough, she might have to cut me open again.”

“Oh,” Cas says, clearly unhappy about that news. Then they join Balthazar once more. Cas nods at him in a greeting, but the Angel simply scowls and walks back into the hospital, expecting them to follow him.

“You’re here early?” Dean then asks. Cas, who is frowning at Balthazar’s back, simply shrugs.

“We were going to the mall at first, get some food and all, but the moment we walked out of the car Alan started to cry again. We suspected demons again, so instead Sam dropped us off here first. He’s joining us after he’s finished.”

Dean pulls Alan’s head away from his chest and inspects his youngest son for a few seconds, taking in the dark green eyes and the light color of the few hairs he has. There are already a few freckles on his cheeks, but not as many as Dean has. Right now, the baby looks back at him in fascination, not seeming even a single bit like he’s about to burst back into tears.

They’ve concluded a while back already that Alan gets startled from being near demons, which is why he ended up crying his lungs out the last time in the hospital when Bela must have come too close. Jonah, being deep asleep, didn’t have the same reaction. The boys, never really crying at all besides that, have sort of become the best alarming-system to when demons are nearby.

“Your brother is one lazy little guy, isn’t he?” Dean asks with a smirk, gently nudging his son’s cheek. Alan just stares back before reaching out and resting his own hand on Dean’s mouth. The man laughs then.

After taking the elevator back to Dean’s floor, Balthazar disappears again. Neither Dean nor Cas comment on it, instead just walking back into Dean’s room. There he greets his roommate, who just waves back at him while continuing his phone call.

“So, how’s life at the bunker?” Dean asks. Having a roommate once again means that they have to watch what they’re talking about. That’s why they mainly avoid the mention of Angels or Demons or any other monster-related business.

“Well, things are good actually,” Cas says while taking Jonah out of the stroller as well, and resting him on his chest as he sits down in the chair opposite Dean’s. While Alan is still curiously mapping out Dean’s face, Jonah just keeps on sleeping on peacefully. “Kevin bought a new game for his Playstation, and now he’s challenging Claire all the time. Jody and Alex are coming to visit again, soon, and even Garth announced that he’s coming to take a look at the twins.”

“Is he bringing his kid along as well?” Dean asks, curious. He knows already that Bessy gave birth to a healthy baby girl called Judith a little while back. It’s also confirmed that the kid’s a werewolf as well, but there was never any doubt in that of course.

“If you want to, we could introduce her to Alan and Jonah?” Cas asks. Dean nods, trusting Garth enough to know if his kid can handle it. “It would be good for them to make friends.”

“Cas, they’re nine weeks old,” Dean answers with a snort. Cas just shrugs and presses a quick kiss in Jonah’s hair.

“Oh, now that I recall, something strange has been going on with Lauren lately,” Cas then says. Dean looks up in confusion, immediately fearing what might be wrong. Don’t say she’s heading out again; that would probably kill Sam.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Cas just shrugs.

“I don’t know, she’s been quiet most of the time. Even Sam expressed his concern earlier in the car. All we know is that she’s trying to get in touch with Gabriel, who won’t show himself as usual.”

“Huh,” Dean hums, wondering what that might be about. He should probably ask her, though, and maybe help her get in contact with that dick. On the other hand, though, he would rather first know what it is she needs from him.

His thoughts are interrupted when Alan once again lifts up his hand and smashes it against Dean’s mouth. Dean startles as he looks down, finding Alan staring at him with big, questioning eyes. Then he sees Jonah slowly waking up in Cas’ arms.

“You got formula?” Dean asks. Cas raises his eyebrows and then nods.

“Yes, it’s in the stroller, give me a moment,” he says as he stands up. When he hands Jonah to him, Dean carefully takes him over. Jonah, too, starts to stare at his father with big eyes.

They’ve got that from Cas. That’s one hundred percent Cas’ stare right there. Dean wouldn’t know who else they’d get it from.

When Jonah, too, starts to hold out his hand, Dean gently leans forward. Jonah’s fingers are warm, much warmer than Alan’s. It makes Dean smile from happiness when he feels his touch, not ever wanting to let it go.

Warmth starts to spread on his own skin from where Jonah is touching him. Dean is not sure, but he swears he can almost see light appear from somewhere close.

Wait, light? Dean frowns and starts to look down, right at the same time when Cas calls out for them.

“Jonah! No!” he shouts, probably a bit too loudly. When he quickly pulls Jonah’s hand away, the boy starts to burst out in tears. Loud cries fill the room, coming from the small child Dean is holding in his arm.

Was Jonah trying to heal him?

“I’m sorry, sir,” Cas apologizes to Dean’s roommate. He just waves at them before heading out of the room to finish his phone call. Cas quickly pulls Jonah out of Dean’s arm, and holds him close to his chest.

“What happened?” Dean asks in confusion, watching his distressed son letting out tear after tear as his voice carries out through the hallway.

“He was already starting to heal you,” Cas clarifies, confirming Dean’s suspicions. His mouth falls open, and when Alan, too, joins in with his brother, it feels as if he’s losing all control.

His boys are crying. Jonah was trying to heal him.

Jonah would have killed him by trying to heal him.

“Dean, hand me Alan, please,” Cas asks, holding out his other arm towards their younger son. Dean hesitates, not seeing how Cas can manage calming them down two at once.

“I don’t-“ Dean starts, but Castiel shakes his head.

“Now, Dean! Before the nurse kicks us out,” Cas urges on. Dean sighs, stands up, and holds out Alan towards Cas, who takes him over effortlessly. Instead of sitting down again, Dean walks closer to them and puts a hand behind Jonah’s head.

“He was just trying to help me,” Dean mutters out. Jonah couldn’t know Death would come and get him if he would have healed him. He’s too young to know about their deal.

“I know,” Cas answers shortly. He allows Jonah to press his face underneath his chin. Alan, too, leans forward and grabs his shirt in his tiny little hands. Dean’s heart aches at the sight. The twins didn’t use to cry much, but lately, they seem to be triggered quite a lot. Their senses have probably evolved quite a bit.

Together, they stand there until the crying stops. Dean has his arms wrapped around Cas and the twins. Cas is lowly speaking to them in gentle, Enochian words. He’s probably calling out to their Grace, trying to calm them down. Dean keeps quiet the entire time, and after five minutes he manages to take Jonah back out Cas’ arm. When the boy is taken over, he immediately goes for Dean’s shirt. His head rests against his chest, and only a few more sniffs come out before he gets completely quiet again.

“You’re getting quite good at this,” Dean says with a light smile. Cas looks up at him with tired eyes, and then he, too, smiles.

“Enochian helps,” he says. “They’re getting used to my soul.”

His _soul_. Dean likes that word, somehow. Not that he didn’t like Cas’ Grace! Not at all! It’s just better to know that Cas is not walking around soulless, as they secretly feared he would the moment he would turn human.

“Now, let’s feed them?” Dean asks. Cas nods before putting Alan down on the bed. The baby is put down on his stomach – which apparently is good for them. Gently, Dean lowers down his other son next to him. Cas quickly hands him some small toys from the stroller, and Dean puts them down on the bed. Then he puts up the safety bars on both side, just to be sure they wouldn’t fall out.

After returning with two bottles of warmed formula, the two fathers gently start feeding their boys.

 

* * *

 

 

_Meanwhile_

Sam barely gets to do the groceries.

The moment he arrives back at the store, he’s mostly on edge as he tries to find the demon that was nearby. Instead of actually putting things down in his cart, he’s instead inspecting everybody he comes across. So far, nobody looks suspicious.

Whispering ‘Christo’ under his breath doesn’t seem to help him at all.

After almost twenty minutes of just wandering around, he decides there’s nothing here to worry about. That’s when he wants to start the actual shopping. He picks up his list and takes a look at the first item, when his phone suddenly goes off.

A sigh escapes his mouth, and Sam puts the list back down as he reaches for his phone. Who-ever this is, they surely have the worst timing. The number is unknown, too. After making sure that this is his standard phone, Sam picks up.

“With Sam,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound _too_ tired. He rubs in his eyes a few times and holds back a yawn.

“ _Hello, is this Sam Winchester?”_ an unknown voice asks. It’s a boy, probably a teenager. He sounds out of breath, almost as if he’s running.

“Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this?” Sam asks. There’s a sound of a closing door, and then a relieved breath.

“ _My name’s Ben, I’m currently on a hunt near your position. Irv passed along your number since you’re in the neighborhood,”_ the boy – Ben – says. Sam sighs and looks up in exasperation. When can he ever just simply do some groceries.

“You need help?” Sam asks when no more explanation comes.

“ _Yeah, I think that’s obvious, since I called you,”_ Ben says, and Sam snorts at the remark.

“Okay then, I’ll need to know where you are and what we’re dealing with,” Sam says. The kid is obviously new at this. It’s probably for the best Irv passed along his number.

“ _I’m currently in Lebanon, Kansas. I spotted some demon activity and went to check it out, but they’re too many and I can’t perform the exorcism with them nearby without them killing me.”_

Huh, what are the odds? Sam’s not too surprised that Irv passed him his number; he’s literally in the neighborhood.

“Right, I’ll text you an address, just try and get there and I’ll meet you.”

“ _What is it?_ ” Ben asks, surely suspicious like any hunter would be.

“It’s the address of my home. We’ll be save there until we figure something out,” Sam says. Besides, he doesn’t have the demon knife nearby. They probably kind of forgot to put it back after the Gates of Hell opened up again.

“ _Okay, I’ll see you there in an hour,”_ Ben says. Then he hangs up, and Sam is hearing nothing more than a beep on the other side of the line. Another sigh escapes his lips as he lowers the phone to quickly send the text to this Ben.

Less than an hour to do the groceries. This also means that he can’t get to Dean today, unless they finish this case quickly.

The hour passes slowly. Sam is in the Impala, on his way towards the bunker with the groceries in the trunk when he lets Dean know that something came up. After answering the question as to how Cas will get home (Kevin will pick him and the boys back up if Sam won’t make it back in time), Sam stops the car in front of the door, wondering if he should put the groceries inside already or just wait out here for a moment.

The choice is made for him when suddenly a cab approaches. Sam, who has been leaning against the wall of the entrance, pushes himself away again to walk down the stairs and get back to the Impala. He’s not too surprised when a teenage boy gets out of the car.

In a way, he looks familiar. He’s got a strong face with sun-tanned skin. His hair is light brown, probably a tad bit darker than Dean’s at the roots but lighter towards the ends. It falls in semi-long waves around his head, just not long enough to pull it together in a ponytail. Once Sam gets a bit closer, he can see dark brown eyes and the smallest freckles on the kid’s cheeks. He can’t be much older than sixteen, Sam quickly realizes in horror.

“Hi, I’m Sam,” he says as he holds out his hand. The boy, who has a bag thrown over his shoulder, looks at him for a long moment before extending his hand as well, and shaking Sam’s

“I’m Ben. I guess you _really_ live close. No wonder Irv gave me your number,” Ben says with a light smirk on his face that reminds Sam lightly of Dean. Sam frowns for a few little seconds, but quickly composes himself again.

“Yeah, to be honest, my brother-in-law and I spotted some demons earlier as well, but since we had my nephews so close we didn’t go after them,” Sam says in a shrug. Ben opens up his eyes in surprise.

“You’re all so domesticated and _still_ work as hunters? How are you not out of the business yet?” he asks. Sam snorts.

“My brother and his husband are out, what with the babies. But I never really stopped, I guess,” Sam says. “By the way, aren’t you a bit too young to hunt?”

Ben scoffs and shakes his head. The expression on his face makes it clear that Sam shouldn’t have brought that up. Without saying another word, Ben marches up the stairs towards the front door.

Something is itching inside of Sam, and he’s sure it has something to do with the familiarity he finds in Ben’s face, but also his behavior. He’s got that ‘too cool to talk’ thing going on, much like Dean often does. If Sam didn’t know better, he would have said this would be a younger version of him.

Sam wants to ask after his parents, but he knows it’s often sensitive to bring that up with a hunter. Most hunters don’t start the job because they want to. It’s mostly out of revenge. If Ben has started this at such a young age, surely something must have happened to his parents.

After a deep breath and quickly pulling all of the groceries out of the trunk, Sam hurries towards the front door. He doesn’t put the Impala back in the garage since he suspects they’ll be out again soon after.

Ben’s eyes widen in surprise once he walks inside. Sam always finds it pleasing to see other people’s reactions. Nobody would suspect such a big building underground. The front door doesn’t show too much of what kind of building is inside, which makes it the best hidden place there can be.

“So, you live in the Batcave?” Ben asks as he lets out an impressed whistle. Sam feels his body tense at the words, but he quickly shakes it off. Batman is known with the teenagers, surely it’s nothing more than coincidence that Ben would say the exact same thing Dean has.

“This is the Men of Letter’s Bunker. It’s some sort of secret society that tried to find out everything about the supernatural. They’ve all been wiped out, though.” Sam carries the bags of groceries downstairs and drops them on the table. Upon the noise, Linda makes her way to the room. When she sees Sam standing there, she nods at him.

“Sam, you took your time. And who’s this?” she asks as she takes the bags over from Sam.

“This is Ben, he’s working on a demon hunt,” Sam explains simply. He doesn’t want to worry her, after all. She then looks at him in horror, but before she can talk, Sam holds up his hand to stop her. He shakes his head, hoping that she understands it as a message to not bring it up.

“Hiya m’am,” Ben says smoothly, holding out his hand. Linda hesitates a little longer before dropping one of the bags again and accepting the handshake.

“Hello,” she says in hesitation. Then she pulls away and tilts her head to the side. “I’m sorry, but how old are you? Where are your parents?”

Ben’s smirk falls away from his face, and his eyes get serious again. Sam closes his eyes and wishes they could skip this part. Linda shouldn’t have asked this, but she just doesn’t know better; she’s a mother, after all.

“I’m sixteen,” he says. “And my mother is dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Linda says genuinely. “And your father?”

“My father is a hunter. That’s about all I know, it’s all vague in my head. I don’t know if he’s still alive. I don’t even know his name.” Ben then shrugs and picks up one of the bags. “Can I help you carry these away?”

Linda raises her eyebrows and then smiles at the kid.

“Sure,” she says, and then she walks towards the kitchen with Ben in tow. Sam frowns, mouth fallen open as he tries to process what exactly just happened. That uneasy feeling keeps on coming back each time Sam tries to push it away.

After less than a minute, Ben returns. His face is put in an impressed expression as he nods back to where he came from.

“Dude, that woman is kind of hot,” he mutters. Sam rolls his eyes, the same way he does whenever Dean says something like that.

“Yeah, and she’s also in her forties,” Sam counters. Ben shrugs and sits himself down at the table Sam is standing next to. “So, how about you show me what you’ve gathered already?”

Ben nods and reaches for his bag, where he fishes out some bare folders. There, he takes out a few pictures, and hands them over to Sam.

“I got my hands on some security footage of a store where apparently a girl of ten knocked out a forty-five-year-old man. I wouldn’t have found it suspicious at first, but then the man swore that her eyes had turned black right before she kicked his ass.”

Ben puts down the images of said beating, where Sam can clearly see a small girl in a knee-long dress beating the crap out of a man. The next few images show the same thing, but each taken a few seconds apart.

“Not long after that, in another store, an old man did the same thing. The cashier only barely made it out of that one,” Ben continues. “How did you not know about this?”

Sam shrugs. “We’ve been pretty busy with the kids, I suppose,” he answers. It’s true, they have their hands full with them lately! “You know what they were after?”

“Yeah, according to the man, they were looking for babies? Something about Winchester twins? Any family of yours?”

Sam tenses once more as he picks up the picture and takes a closer look. These guys, and probably many more demons, are looking for Alan and Jonah? Why is it then that they haven’t even attacked them yet?

And why did they go after Dean, first? Or was that just Bela going after revenge?

“I take that as a yes?” Ben then adds as he inspects Sam’s horrified face. The younger Winchester shakes his head out of it and clears his throat. There’s a pressing feeling against his chest all of the sudden, and Sam immediately feels like he’s suffocating.

“Whoever they are, we need to get rid of those demons immediately,” Sam says bitterly. Ben raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t speak up. Sam still hasn’t answered his question, but he doesn’t really feel like explaining everything now.

“Right,” the teenager says. “Anyway, I tracked down the girl after I saw her in the streets. When I followed her, I found that they were hiding in a safehouse not too far from here. There’s at least twenty of them as far as I could count, but I’m pretty sure there’s more of them. Too many to handle on my own, at least.”

Sam nods. He wonders if he should text Dean and Cas about this. Should he worry them about this stuff? Even if they take care of the demons now, there will be more of them after the boys. They will never be safe, as long as the gates of Hell are opened again.

And whose fault is it that happened?

“So, any idea how we’re going to take care of these assholes?” Ben asks with his arms crossed. Sam looks up, having forgotten that he wasn’t alone. Looking at Ben gives him another weird feeling that he looks familiar. He fights it down once more.

“Not yet,” Sam says. “Kevin normally has a few bombs that can kill demons, but that would mean killing their vessels as well, which is something we want to avoid.”

Ben nods, but doesn’t speak up.

“The Colt is stuck in Wyoming, and I only have one Demon-knife, which will also kill the host. What I would say is a massive exorcism, but for that we would need to get the demons in one room, and manage to get the incantation spoken out without interruption.”

Ben gives him a long look and then sighs.

“So, basically what we need is an army, and not just the two of us?” Ben asks. Sam turns his head and frowns.

“Not exactly, my brother and I managed it once before, but that was a police station with an intercom where we broadcasted the exorcisms.”

Then he takes a long breath.

“Besides, I would like to keep once demon alive. There are some questions I would like to ask them.”

“Yeah, like that’s a smart idea,” Ben counters. Sam shakes his head in return.

“They’re after my nine-week-old nephews. I need to know why.”

Ben’s face straightens then, and he steps back.

“Alright, then we will keep one alive,” Ben says. He takes a deep breath and clears his throat. “Listen, we take care of this now, and we’ll get the answers for you by tonight. Deal?”

Sam inspects Ben’s form a little while longer and bites his lip. Though the color is different, that look in Ben’s eyes reminds Sam much of Dean’s. One would almost say they’re related.

Wait… Ben? That name is familiar, too, right?

“What’s your last name, kid?”

Ben throws him an annoyed look upon being called a kid. He puts his hands on his hips, and raises his head in an attempt to look down at Sam. That’s a lost cause, though.

“Braeden,” Ben answers. “My name is Ben Braeden.”

No way. That’s Dean’s Ben. Lisa’s Ben. The Ben Dean has lived with for over a year. The Ben Dean saw as his own son during that time.

That Ben.

Many questions pass through Sam’s head after that; Did Lisa really die? How did that happen, and how did Ben end up into the hunting world? Why is he alone? Does he still not remember anything about Dean?

Sam wants to ask them all, but as far as he knows, Ben doesn’t remember anything about Dean. He doesn’t know if it’s his right to start poking after it.

“Right,” Sam says with a shaking in his voice. Then he clears his throat once more and looks to the side. He wonders if Lauren is home? Maybe she’d like to help out? Sam doesn’t really like bringing her along on hunts, but mostly she insists on joining still. Not that she’s a bad hunter, of course. It’s mostly worry that something might go wrong. “Listen, I’m gonna look for my girlfriend and ask if she wants to join. You stay here, okay? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Ben nods, and after that Sam leaves the room in search for Lauren. First, he looks in their bedroom. Then, the bathroom. After ten more minutes of walking through the entire bunker, he quickly comes to the realization that she’s not in here.

“Hey Sam, you looking for somebody?” Claire suddenly asks from the doorway to her room. Sam turns around to see her standing there, leaning against the side. Her hair is put up in a high ponytail, and there are earbuds hanging around her neck.

“Yeah, you seen Lau?” he asks. Claire looks up for a moment, but then shakes her head.

“No, haven’t seen her since breakfast. But she did say something about going to court, so I suppose she’s working,” Claire answers. Sam sighs, understanding that asking for her help won’t work out after all. “You got something on your mind?”

“Just wanted to ask if she wanted to join on a hunt,” Sam answers shortly. Then Claire pulls away the earbuds and throws them back into her room.

“Take me with you! I can help!” she suddenly calls out as she walks up to him.

“I don’t know, Claire, I’m pretty sure Cas would kill me if something would happen to you,” Sam hesitates. There are probably thousand and one reasons for Sam to keep Claire at home. The one he fears the most is the wrath Cas will bring upon him if even a hair on Claire’s head is touched. No matter Angel or human, Cas is scary that way.

“Nothing will happen to me! C’mon Sam! Be a cool uncle and take a lonely teenage girl along! There’s literally nothing else to do here!” Claire grabs on his arm and starts pulling it.

“Why do you keep on calling me uncle?” Sam asks jokingly. Claire rolls her eyes and pulls some more.

“Don’t be a buzzkill, I can hold my own, please! I’ll even take the Angel sword along if you’re so worried,” she keeps on begging. Sam turns his face away as he considers the possible outcomes of this situation. One of them has Claire dead, which he certainly wants to avoid. Then there’s the possibility of kidnapped, possessed, and whatever else. They really should have inked her up with the anti-possession tattoo to be safe.

“It could be dangerous,” Sam counters. Claire snorts.

“Please, I’ve been in dangerous situations before,” she huffs, as if it’s not that big a deal. “Last time, Dean gave me a gun and took me along.”

“Yeah because he knew you would come anyway even if he told you to stay there,” Sam retorts. Claire sighs and pulls on his arm once more.

“ _Please_ , Sam! If you let me come along, I’ll do the dishes for an entire week!”

Sam sighs, figuring he won’t get her off his back any other way. Claire is stubborn, if anything. If she wants something, she’ll do her damn best to get it.

“Alright, but I want you by my side at all times, understood? If _anything_ happens to you, Cas will probably kill me!” That’s not true, Cas would never kill him. But he will be extremely angry and disappointed, which is something Sam would like to avoid.

“Understood, sir!” Claire says in a salute before grinning up at him. “Let me get my shoes and the sword!”

“Uhm, better keep the sword there. It’s too big and it stands out too much,” Sam quickly adds. Claire looks back at him in a questioning glance. “I’ll give you one of the spare Angel blades instead.”

Claire then nods, grins even wider, and turns to put on her shoes.

“I won’t let you down, Sam!” Claire exclaims, and then she’s back in her room. Sam shakes his head, already regretting this decision. After picking up some necessary weapons and other things for this upcoming hunt, he walks back to the main room where he can see Ben toying around with a cellphone and with his feet up on the table.

 _Like Dean always does_ , Sam’s mind points out. He ignores that thought and instead drops down the bag and clears his throat once more. From where he stands, he can see that Ben is busy on Facebook, which makes Sam wonder what exactly a hunter put up there.

“Your girlfriend coming?” Ben asks without looking away from his screen.

“She’s not here. But somebody else is coming along,” Sam says shortly. Ben then looks up in interest at the exact same time that Claire walks in with her bag thrown over her shoulder.

“I’m ready! Tell me about the case!” Claire calls out to Sam. The hunter sighs and nods towards Ben, an invitation for him to do it instead. When Claire sees the teenager sitting there, she frowns. “What, you’re letting him come along, but you wouldn’t take me with you? He’s younger than I am!”

“Yeah, not my first choice either,” Sam mutters. Ben lets out a protesting ‘hey’ but is ignored. “But, in the end, Dean and I have been hunting when we were even younger, and we made it out okay.”

“Dean your brother? Or your brother-in-law?” Ben asks, suddenly interested. Sam opens his mouth to answer, but then Claire does it for him.

“Dude, you’re a hunter and you don’t know about the legendary Sam and Dean Winchester? The ones who stopped the Apocalypse?” she asks. Ben just looks at her, unimpressed. “I think every hunter right now knows about their adventures! They’ve both been to Hell, Heaven _and_ Purgatory, and they’ve both returned! Heck, Sam here has even been possessed by the devil!”

“Okay, that’s enough Claire,” Sam urges on. With his face, he tries to tell her that she shouldn’t reveal _too_ much.

“Yeah, and then he roamed on Earth for a year, came back, and let Dean turn into a Vampire,” Ben grits out. Claire’s mouth drops at that, as if she had been about to say something but can’t come up with the words anymore.

“How- how do you know _that_?” Sam asks, pretty sure that information didn’t make it through the Grapevine. Ben’s expression falls and he looks confused for a while.

“I’m not sure,” he then says, scratching over his head.

“Uh-huh,” Sam lets out. Well, there’s no more time to lose; they should come up with a plan now.

Even though Sam had been reluctant to bring Claire along, he finds himself pretty happy that he did; Claire’s ideas are, while rough, still fresh and coming out of a non-hunter angle. These new kinds of ideas are surely not what they’re going to follow, but it leads them into finding and formulating an actual plan.

As it is, Claire will bring along her portable speaker. It’s probably not loud enough though, and Sam doesn’t know enough magic to put an amplifying spell on it – that stuff should have been easier with Crowley still there – but it’s the best they’ve got so far. Together, the three of them take out one of Sam’s spare phones, and they speak out the incantation a couple of times while they record it. At the end of it, even Claire knows it by heart. After that, Sam puts it up on a loop and presses the pause button.

They grab all the salt they can get (Sam bought extra to be sure), take a couple of the prepared Demon Bombs Kevin had made last year when he was still kind of out of it, and then Sam gives Ben and Claire an Angel blade as he holds the Demon Knife close.

“Okay, I’m protected against Demons, but you two aren’t,” Sam then suddenly says. With that, he picks out the two protective charms Bobby once gave them when they first dealt with Meg. Ben puts it on without question, but Claire looks at it in admiration. It’s just a simple necklace Dean and Sam barely wore, but it’s just a temporary thing. Sam might have to bring up the tattoo for the future.

“This isn’t too lame,” Claire says, eventually putting the necklace around her neck. Then she gives Ben a long look as she takes him in. “How’d you get into this hunt, pal?”

Ben looks back at her in silence, his brown eyes boring deeply into Claire’s. For a moment, Sam is afraid he’s going to start flirting with her – if he’s truly anything like Dean. He lets out a long and deep breath when he doesn’t, though.

“The usual, followed some clues, used my amazing charms,” he says with a shrug. Claire snorts in return.

“Your amazing charms? You just happen to run into all the cougars on the way?” Claire asks jokingly as she wraps her arms together over her chest. Sam, too, wants to answer the question on _that_ , though. How did a sixteen-year-old teenager manage to get all this security footage into his possession?

“Nah, it don’t work with the ladies that much. Luckily, the men don’t always oppose of getting attention of a barely-legal boy,” Ben says. Sam stops breathing after that, trying too much not to imagine Ben hitting with men in their forties to get some information. In a way, that’s almost exactly what Dean would do, except that Dean always had his head so deep into his ass that he only ever tried that on women.

“Barely legal? Please, _I’m_ barely legal. You’re still a brat,” Claire says, unimpressed. Ben then scowls, preparing something in return but being interrupted by Sam.

“Alright alright, that’s enough,” Sam mutters in return. He holds up the bag with salt and hands it to Ben, and then he picks up the bag with the bombs. It’s better to keep those close with him. Claire holds up her speaker and Sam’s phone in one hand, and then she takes the Impala’s keys from the table.

“Can I drive?” she asks.

“Yeah, keep dreaming sunshine. You know Dean would kill me,” Sam says, snagging the keys out of her hand. More protests come out of Claire’s mouth, but he stops her immediately. “Remember that you’re coming along because I allow it. I could keep you here for all I care.”

He’s trying to be strict here, but even he knows he can’t keep Claire in here. One way or another, she’ll find a way to follow him. She’ll end up arriving there, unprepared, and then surely something will go wrong.

They end up driving to the place Ben found. It doesn’t seem too shady, and as far as Sam can see there are no Demons wandering outside. They seem careless, somehow. Still, he’s learned not to trust demons too much. Instead, he nods towards the building and indicates for them to take their weapons. After showing them where they can hide their blades, Sam hands both of them a shot gun with rock salt. It’s mostly a primary defense to give them enough time to run off if they’d need to. Sam doesn’t want to think too much about them being in danger.

As they near the building, he indicates at Claire that she should start painting. She fishes out he spray bottle and nods, heading towards a door to draw out a quick demon trap. When she finishes, she goes to the next door, and then the next. Sam hopes she doesn’t get into any trouble as she works. Like they agreed to, Ben starts pouring out salt around the building. He doesn’t know if they’ll manage to do the entire building, but they have to start somewhere.

As the two teenagers work outside, Sam sneaks his way through the first door Ben worked on. Quickly, he closes it again behind him. In all silence that he can manage, he sneaks further inside. He’s got the demon knife ready in his hand, and two bombs in the pocket of his jacket.

With his back pressed again the wall, Sam keeps on going. There is some noise further in which he follows. The lights are mostly out, but the nearer he gets to the demons, the lighter it becomes. Once he reaches the end of the hallway, he finds himself looking into an open space.

A storage room, Sam’s mind quickly tells him. It’s large, and barely lid up. The first thing he notices, though, is the large group of demons standing together as they look up at somebody standing in some sort of podium.

“Come on! For almost two years we’ve been stuck downstairs! Why can’t we have some fun!” somebody in the crowd calls out. The demon on the podium, possessing a young man looking pretty much like what Claire used to call a _hipster_ , snarls and glares down at the demon that spoke up.

“You know how long _two years_ is in Hell!” Hipster-boy says angrily. “We are weak, weak enough that even our anger can’t save us if hunters would come after us!”

“But we’re with so many!” another calls out. “Surely even the Winchesters can’t take us on if they're so outnumbered.”

“You forget that they have Angels by their side! Especially now with those Nephilim around! It will be next to impossible to get them if we don’t work together as a _group_ and _follow orders!_ ”

Orders? Whose orders are they supposed to follow? And why are they after Alan and Jonah?

“There’s no way for us to know where the Winchesters live! And now since Bela screwed everything up for her personal vendetta, we can’t even get _near_ the hospital. They’ve doubled up the Angels, added more wards against us!”

Sam takes a deep breath as he tries to listen to what they’re saying. He remembers Dean telling him about Bela resurfacing. It had made him feel extremely uneasy and even a little bit paranoid.

“Besides, we can’t get anything out of Crowley. We can torture him all we want, but if we keep up like that he’ll end up Demon again before the end of this month.”

Crowley? So it’s true? He’s truly back in Hell? Sam remembers Inias explaining what he saw back in Wyoming; Crowley’s body (or vessel?) lying dead on the ground next to a very excited witch. When Inias had then later returned to snatch back Crowley’s body, both it and Rowena’s corpse had been missing. Where they are or why they’ve been taken, nobody really knows.

“She’ll deal with him. If he’s such a demon, why would he even care about keeping the Winchester’s location a secret?”

Sam wants to know more, but at the same time he finds himself feeling anxious. What are these demons doing here without any guarding outside? Are Ben and Claire safe? They surely must be going their way inside right now.

His suspicions are right when he turns around and sees Claire walking back up to him. Ben isn’t there, though.

“Where’s Ben?” he asks. Claire shrugs.

“I didn’t see him outside,” she whispers shortly. “I suspect he’s still busy.”

Sam nods, but despite his attempt to trust the teenager, he finds that he really _doesn’t_. Whatever Ben’s doing here in Lebanon, Sam is pretty sure he doesn’t have the full story. There’s just too many empty fills in his story. Details, parts missing. It’s as if he’s hiding something big.

“Boss!! I found this little guy wandering around outside!” a demon suddenly shouts, and both Sam and Claire look back to the crowd to see a demon in a redheaded woman pulling Ben along by his shirt. She’s holding his shotgun in her hand, but so far Sam is relieved to see they haven’t found the Blade.

“Well well well, what have we here? It’s the little pain in my ass that has been following me around since Cicero. What happened, little guy? Are you still angry about your mother?”

Sam takes a deep breath. His first instinct is to go after them, and get Ben out of trouble. But doing so would mean that they would lose the advantage of being hidden. Still, he holds the bomb in his hand tightly as he prepares himself for the worst.

“Where is she?” Ben asks sharply. Sam blinks then; does that mean Lisa’s not dead?

“Your mother ain’t here anymore sweetheart,” Hipster demon says with a grin. He pulls Ben away from the redhead and carries him back onto the podium. “Surely you must have known that, since you’re the one that stabbed her right in her gut.”

Ben struggles against the strong grip he’s held in. Sam indicates to Claire to follow him, and slowly they try to make their way closer to the crowd. Claire starts to connect the phone with the speaker in silence.

“You _made_ me stab her!” Ben cries out angrily. “You made me kill my own mother, and then one of you sons of bitches took her along!”

“And now you want to kill the demon possessing her, don’t ya?” Hipster asks. He looks somewhere in the crowd and nods. Then, somebody moves; a figure Sam quickly comes to recognize as Lisa Braeden. Sam is extremely glad Dean isn’t here right now, or he might have gotten insane from anger.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Ben calls out angrily, fighting some more but not managing to break free. When the demon possessing Lisa comes closer and puts a hand on his cheek, Ben stills. For a moment, Sam sees him look up at his mother, and then he winces when Lisa strongly slaps the palm of her hand against his cheek.

“You watch your tongue, brat,” Lisa snaps back. Sam figures that he shouldn’t wait much longer. Letting Ben get slapped on the face is already enough for Sam to want to wipe out all the demons in the room. Especially when he sees Lisa – or the demon inside Lisa – take the protective charm from Ben’s neck, and pull it off.

“I’ve found out so much about your mother. We had much time together when we were imprisoned in Hell these past two years,” Lisa says. The hipster behind her clears his throat, a signal for him to move this along. “I wonder what I’ll find out inside your mind.”

And before Sam can get into action to stop it from happening, the demon escapes Lisa’s body, only to enter in Ben’s.

“No!” Sam shouts. That exact time, Claire presses the play button of her portable speakers, and lets it go on the maximum volume. Their three voices quickly fill the room, but probably not loud enough to affect everybody. Still, Sam quickly lashes out with his Demon knife, cutting down the demons nearest to him. Claire shoots around with her shotgun a little bit, slowing them down and allowing Sam to strike. He’s glad to see that she’s keeping herself out of harm’s way.

“Sam Winchester! How nice of you to show up!” The Hipster demon says, clearly still unaffected by the exorcism broadcasted in Claire’s hand. All around her, the demons already start falling on their knees as they try to shield their ears away from the spoken words. The room is quickly filled with cries of agony.

“Let Ben go, you assholes!” Sam snaps, holding one of the demon bombs in his hands and readying himself to throw it. Then the demon shakes his head smugly, pointing towards Ben, who is once again standing up. Lisa’s lifeless body is lying on the ground, motionless.

“If you use that, you’ll burn out that nephew of yours, Sam,” the Demon says smugly.

“Ben is not my nephew!” Sam counters, trying to emphasize the fact that Ben _isn’t_ a Winchester. As it is, being _friends_ with the Winchesters is enough trouble as it is, but being an _actual_ Winchester is nothing more than a curse.

“I beg to differ,” Ben suddenly says. He’s looking back at Sam with pitch black eyes. “Mommy dearest admitted it to him right after she and Dean ended their thing together. She made him promise not to tell anybody, of course.”

Sam growls in anger, and slashes the demon knife in the hipster’s way. The demon pulls away without any trouble.

“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,”_ Sam then starts muttering under his breath. The two demons visibly flinch at that, and then Ben lashes out at him, kicking him in the face to make him shut up. Sam spits away the blood coming from his split lip, and then he continues. “ _Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii_.”

Behind him, the sound of the exorcize starts to get stronger, meaning that Claire is getting closer to him. He can hear her cry out in anger as she stabs down two more demons that try to get near, but so far she manages to hold her own just fine.

Sam is even impressed. She really _can_ hold her ground.

“Stop it! Stop her!” hipster-Demon calls out, but all the demons nearby are already falling down on their knees as they try to block the noise out. Claire throws out some more holy water to get them away from her. After that, she pours the bottle down over herself. The demons that still manage to get near her quickly pull away as her skin burns in their hands.

Sam catches the second bottle Claire had with her. He barely manages to open the bottle before he has to dodge another strike coming from Ben. Hipster-demon now, too, falls down on his knees.

“Ben, take control!” Sam shouts out, but he knows that Ben won’t be able to hear him. It takes a _lot_ of dedication to overcome a demon’s power, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have much emotional value for him.

Ben snarls, and pulls back with curses when Sam pours out some holy water in his face.

“ _Omnis congregation et secta diabolica,”_ Sam continues, throwing more holy water each time Ben tries to get near him. “ _Ergo, draco maledicte. Ut ecclesiam tuam secura facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos.”_

Finally, the black smoke comes back out of Ben’s mouth, simultaneous with all the other Demons. Before they can flee their way back in hell, though, Sam picks up one of the bombs and throws it on the ground.

Then, white smoke and light fills the room.

 

* * *

 

 

Ben comes too ten minutes after Sam burned out the demons. Claire is looking around in the room, finding dark burning marks all over the ceiling where the demons were before Sam threw the bomb.

“So, are they dead?” she asks Sam, who is kneeled down to Ben. The teenage boy is slowly opening his eyes as he comes back into the waking world. From the frown he’s showing, he’s clearly in some pain.

“They are, yeah,” Sam says. When Ben tries to sit up, Sam helps him out. He puts a hand behind his back to steady him, allowing him time to get used to the change.

“Oh, my head hurts,” Ben mutters, rubbing against his forehead. Sam chuckles a little bit.

“Yeah, a demon possession will do that to you,” he says, remembering how he felt after Meg jumped back out of him. “You alright?”

“As much as I can be,” Ben answers. Then he looks around to find all the demons missing around them. “So they’re gone. Did some of the people survive?”

“We mostly tried to stab them in lower parts of their bodies, but they’ll need medical attention if they survived,” Sam says urgently. He stands up then, and takes the spare phone back from Claire, who is now once more standing next to him. “You called the ambulance with this phone?”

Claire nods. Sam then smashes the device on the ground, and breaks it under his foot.

“We need to get out of here before they wake up,” he urges on. Despite his headache, Ben stands up to follow them out, but then he hesitates.

“I don’t want to leave my mom like this,” Ben admits. Sam wants to counter, wants to say that they don’t have the time for that. But one look at the exhausted face of the teenager makes it clear that it means a lot to him. “You know what she meant to your brother.”

And Sam’s breath catches at that. He wants to ask how he remembers – it shouldn’t be possible since Cas erased all of his memories – but he finds that he would be losing too much time with that. Instead he walks back towards Lisa’s cold, unmoving body. Without any words, he picks her up, holding her carefully against his chest. They should give her a hunter’s burial. She deserves at least that.

They manage to escape before the ambulances arrive. Sam makes the drive back to the bunker, with Claire sitting in the front next to him, and Ben sitting in the back holding his mother in his arms.

Nobody speaks when they prepare the wood for the fire. No word is spoken when they watch Lisa’s body burn. Ben, who has been keeping distance at first, eventually comes to stand next to Sam when the fire is at its strongest.

“She told me after she and Dean broke up. She never dared to tell him, afraid that he would run,” Ben suddenly says. “And when she was at the hospital, I was so angry at him for bringing us into this mess. And then, the guy in the coat appeared, and it seemed like I was finally feeling free again.”

Sam knows he’s talking about Castiel, there.

“But even after he took our memories, I somehow still had dreams. I didn’t know a name, but I knew his face. And then the demon came, saying something about me being Winchester-offspring. For half a year I chased them, trying to get revenge. But then all the demons disappeared, and I had nowhere else to go.”

“So you looked us up,” Sam concludes. Ben nods.

“I recognized Dean immediately. Went to look for him, but never had much success. Being a kid on the road doesn’t help much, but eventually I had my growth spurt, and I could finally pretend to be older than I am.”

“You didn’t let those men touch you, right?” Sam asks, just to be sure. Ben snorts and shakes his head.

“Of course not. I might flirt, but I’m not selling my body for information,” Ben answers. “Eventually, the demons showed up again – I saw an image of my mother pass by. I tracked it back down to here, and ended up getting your number from Irv when I told him where I was.”

“You want to see Dean,” Sam speaks out. Ben stays quiet for a little while.

“I remember that year he lived with us. I didn’t, before the demon got to me. Back then, I just wanted to look at the man who caused me and my mother such pain.”

“And now?” he asks.

“I want to see my father, at last.”

Sam nods. He looks up at the sky, seeing that it’s almost getting dark. That means that visiting hours are also almost over.

“Then let’s go now,” Sam says. He walks back into the car, and Ben follows him with a confused look.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“We’re going to see Dean,” Sam explains. “And you get to meet your brothers.”

Ben’s eyes widen, as if he had actually forgotten about the twins.

It’s almost eight by the time they get to the hospital. Sam knows Ben has questions as to why they have stopped here, but he’s sure the boy will draw his conclusions eventually. After getting inside, he hurries into the elevator and gets himself to the right floor.

“Sir, visiting hours are almost over!” one of the nurses says. Sam nods and holds up his hand.

“Please, this is my nephew, and he hasn’t seen his father in three years,” Sam explains shortly, trying to get her sympathies. The nurse gives Ben a long look before sighing and nodding.

“Fine, but don’t make it too long,” she says. Sam thanks her and gives her a small nod. Then he guides Ben towards Dean room with a hand on his shoulder.

The door opens the exact moment Sam wants to knock. In front of them stands Cas, who is busy trying to pull the stroller along as he wants to exit the room. Behind him, holding one of the boys – Sam can’t tell who it is from here – is Dean, laughing at his husband’s clumsiness. When he looks up and sees Sam standing there, he starts to frown.

“Sammy? Why are you here? Visiting hours are-“ he starts, but Sam stops him from talking by pulling Ben closer to him. The moment Dean sees him there, his mouth falls open and Sam can hear him take a deep breath.

“Guess who I ran into?” Sam tries to joke, but then Ben walks away from him, getting into the room after Cas puts the stroller aside. Cautiously, Ben inspects Dean’s sick form standing there in front of him. Sure, he looks a lot fuller now that he’s been getting extra nutrition, but he’s still looking nothing like the Dean he was before.

“Ben, how-?” Dean tries to ask. Sam catches him looking at Cas shortly before giving him back one of the boys. Cas takes his son without question, putting him back into the stroller next to his brother. Then, without prompting, Dean leans forward and wraps his arms around Ben. Sam is pretty sure that he saw the tears in his eyes.

“Hi, dad,” Ben says after that. The entire room falls quiet.

 

 

 


	3. I’m pretty sure natural doesn’t really cut it in this family

_September 10 th  
Nine weeks_

Talking has never been Dean’s best skill.

He can hold a casual conversation well enough, yes. And he could talk his way straight into a woman’s pants back in the day without any trouble (mostly). Talking just for the fun of talking is fine.

Dean is just not good at _talking_.

“How about your son’s reappearance?”

Dean bites his lip. He’s been here for ten minutes only, and he already wants to crawl back out.

It hasn’t been a day since Ben reappeared, but Dean figures word travels fast. After Ben’s surprise visit, he had to bolt again because of the nurses practically kicking them all out. The shock of having the boy call him _dad_ kept him awake for the entire night, and by the time morning came he felt like he was about to crawl out of his skin.

But as it is, it’s Tuesday. That means psychiatrist-time.

“What about it?” Dean asks. So far, all they’ve talked about is the weather and the fact that Dean just wants to go back home. It’s a recurring theme, so the psychiatrist must be in Heaven for having a new topic to bring up that doesn’t involve the twins, his brother or his husband.

“According to the nurses, you haven’t seen him in three years?” the woman asks, keeping her pen close to her paper but not writing anything down. Dean gives her a short look before looking out of the window again.

“Four, actually,” Dean says, thinking back to that last time he saw Ben. A loud sigh escapes from his mouth. He doesn’t know much about what happened, but he’s aware that Lisa is dead, and that Ben and Sam watched her body burn as they gave her a hunter’s funeral.

“That’s quite a while,” Dr. Pemrose says. Dean snorts. To him, it’s been a while. For Ben, it mustn’t have been that long, since he didn’t remember him anymore. “And what about his mother?”

Dean looks up again, feeling something heavy stuck in his throat. He wants to swallow it down, but that almost hurts.

“Lisa’s dead,” is all he says. It still feels unreal; Lisa Braeden, a woman he’s loved for a long time, a woman he’s lived with for an entire year, is now in ashes near the bunker. The wind is probably already making her fly away.

“And how does that make you feel, Dean?”

Dean can’t admit it to anybody that his eyes sting. He just wants to get out of here as quickly as possible, but bolting right now is only a setback to getting back home. He needs to push through this.

“I feel like punching things,” Dean says, but what he thinks is more in the line of ‘ _I feel like stabbing some demons to death_ ’. Of course, he can’t say that without ending up in the psychiatric ward – or wait, he’s already heading there after his heart-issues are taken care of.

Dr. Pemrose nods and writes something down. Dean bites his lip once more and looks down onto his clasped hands. His fingers twitch nervously. This chair isn’t even comfortable, despite what they think. Just because it looks cozy, doesn’t mean it is.

“How did you two break up?” the doctor asks. Dean takes a deep breath. Right, _talking_ will help him get out of here. No matter how much he hates it, keeping quiet won’t get him forward at all.

But how can he explain this without it becoming too weird?

“Uh, I was drugged,” Dean makes up on the spot, frowning after that when he figures he has to explain that part, too. Dr. Pemrose looks at him curiously, waiting for him to continue. “My brother and I were in Limestone at the time, checking out this club we heard good things about.”

Dr. Pemrose nods, but doesn’t interrupt him. Good.

“We, uh, got separated for a while, and somebody got the jump on me, and injected me with this weird kind of drug that made me very… violent.” _Blood thirsty is more like it._ “In my drugged out state, I went back to Lisa in the assumption I wasn’t going to make it. I wanted to say goodbye. But in the process, I shoved Ben aside a bit too harshly when he got too close to me. That’s when Lisa kind of decided things were over between us.”

“And you never tried to explain yourself? Tell her what happened?” Dr. Pemrose asks. Dean shakes his head.

“Nah,” he answers. “I figured she was right. I tend to hurt people I care about without wanting to.”

Dr. Pemrose writes down another thing. Then she crosses her legs together and leans back in her seat. Her golden hair catches in the light a bit and almost seems to glow despite being put up in a tight bun.

“Then what about your husband? And your sons?”

Dean stays quiet for a moment. His fingers nervously twitch with his golden wedding ring. It’s a bit too big now, back to being the size it had been before Dean got changed into a chick. He wonders how long it’ll take for him to wear it normally again without having to fear it would fall off all the time. Sometimes he wears the thing as a necklace once more, just to make sure he doesn’t lose it.

“Cas is a trained soldier,” Dean says then. “He knows and recognizes danger when it’s there.”

At least, he used to. Now, Dean’s not so sure. Cas is mostly just getting used to being a human that he doesn’t seem to pay attention that much. Besides, it’s different with Cas. When they got together, he was a fully-powered Angel. Danger could not get to them easily. And even now, with Cas’ powers lost, they still have a part of Heaven that is only thinking about their protection.

But it’s not like Dean can say all that.

“You never told me how you and your husband got together?” Dr. Pemrose suddenly asks. Dean looks up with large eyes. Great, another lie he has to come up with. He’s really not getting forward with these sessions.

“We’d been friends for years,” Dean says. “I guess there was always something _more_ happening between us, but we never really acted on it.”

Dr. Pemrose nods and starts to write stuff down again. When she looks up at him, Dean knows he should continue.

“Cas had trouble with his family, and he was about to leave to fix the trouble. But him leaving would mean that we wouldn’t be able to see each other again. One of his sisters caught up with that, and called us out on it. After that, Cas stayed and we’ve been together.”

“And who took the step for marriage?” suddenly comes out, and Dean crosses his arms and starts to frown. He’s been down with talking this crap because it’s supposed to help him, but even now it feels like it’s becoming too much.

“I don’t really see how that matters?” Dean asks defensively. The doctor puts down her notes and rests her hands on her lap. She turns her head a bit to the side, blue eyes staring straight down into Dean’s.

“You aren’t comfortable to talk, are you?” she asks. Dean huffs, wondering how it is that she’s only figured that out _now_. “In these past few weeks, I’ve watched you grown, Dean. Not only mentally, but also physically. You are no longer the same person I saw on our first meeting.”

“Yeah, because I fattened up,” Dean mutters, but upon seeing Dr. Pemrose’s frown, he realizes that wasn’t the best thing to say.

“And I suppose that is the problem right there; what we consider a healthy weight gain, people in your condition see as ‘getting fat again’. It’s not always outspoken, but it’s always there, and it’s not easy to let go of.”

“I already told you, I do not longer care about my weight. All I want is to be home with my family,” Dean counters, tired of this endless discussion. He _doesn’t_ have an eating disorder; if anything, the only disorder he has is his tendency to eat too much fast food.

“And would you think you are fit to take care of your boys in this state?” Dr. Pemrose asks. Dean falls quiet, leaning back in his chair as the words work through his mind.

“No,” he admits. Too often, he ends up exhausted from just walking around the hallway. His chest keeps on hurting from this new valve-problems he’s having, and he has to rely on too much medication to head back home. Besides that, even, the feeding tube has returned and he’s once more dependent of the extra nutrition they’re bringing him twice a day. When he had asked, the only thing he understood from it was that this type of feeding had less complications with it than having it run through his blood systems.

Even now, Dean looks at the pump slowly pushing food into his stomach. It looks stupid and huge, though it’s supposed to be easy to travel with. Dean clears his throat and looks down once more, checking his nervous fingers. Unthinkingly, he took off his ring and played with it nervously. Without saying a word, he puts it back on.

“I understand that you want to return home, Dean. Especially now that your other son has returned. But you can’t help them if you rush yourself back to health. You have to take this slow.”

Dean bites his lip, feeling that the best thing right now is not to say anything. He turns his head to the side and stares out of the window, seeing that it’s raining.

“Have you talked to Ben yet?” she suddenly asks. Dean looks up and sighs. This is going to be a long session.

After being cooped up for sixty minutes in that room, Dean is finally walking through the hospital – with Hannah by his side of course – to get back to his room. Some people are watching him as he walks by, seeing a sick and fragile person. It’s not an unusual sight in a hospital, but they seem to find him extremely interesting to look at.

Getting back to his room is nothing new, either. His roommate is already packing his bag to return home, meaning that once again Dean will be alone in here. He’s seen so many people go that he almost starts to wonder if he’ll ever get out.

“Hannah?” Dean suddenly asks just when the Angel is about to get away from the door – she can’t get in, but she’s been paying attention to him to make sure he wouldn’t collapse.

“Yes, Dean?” the Angel asks. Dean takes a good look at her. The new vessel she’s chosen after letting go of Caroline bears some resemblance of the previous one. Castiel had told him back when it happened that Hannah couldn’t live with the guilt of having to possess a human being, taking away their life and free will. He wonders what’s changed.

“Why have you chosen to take another vessel?” Dean asks. Hannah tilts her head the same way Castiel still does. Her dark curls are put in a neat bun, keeping her hair out of her face. While Caroline had light blue eyes, this vessel’s are a dark rich brown.

“I didn’t want to, at first,” she admits sadly. Then she looks down at her hands and observes her short fingers. “Jolene is Caroline’s sister, but they haven’t been in contact in a while. Jolene was dying, when I came to her. She had cancer, stage four. It had originated in her bowels and spread out to multiple organs.”

Dean keeps on looking at her, and Hannah lowers her hands once more.

“When Gabriel came with the news that he had returned, when he said he had a mission from our father, he asked if I would help. At first I wanted to help from Heaven, but now…”

“You knew you were needed on Earth?” Dean tries. He doesn’t get it, not really, but he can understand her a little bit. Hannah nods.

“I didn’t want to go back to Caroline, so I went to Jolene instead. We came to an understanding; she would agree to be my vessel for as long as was necessary, and I would cure her from every single tumor she had in her body.”

“And she’s cured now?” Dean asks. Hannah nods.

“She’s completely cancer free, and I hope that I can release her by the next year so she can build up a new life. She knows she can’t go back to where she was from.”

Dean doesn’t answer anymore. Instead, he turns back towards the window to watch the raindrops fall down. The day had started beautiful, too.

“It was because of Castiel, you know,” she suddenly says. Dean looks back at her in confusion. “He made me understand humanity, made me feel the things he felt. I felt his pain from when he lost you, but the happiness he felt with each time you were together. He made me understand that human life is much more complex than I’d thought.”

“And then you fell in love with him?” Dean asks bitterly. Hannah doesn’t show any reaction.

“I suppose I did,” she admits calmly. “But I also know, now, that he won’t share that feeling with me. He loves you too much for that.”

Dean doesn’t react, instead crosses his arms and leans against the wall.

“Yeah, well, you still kissed him,” Dean mutters. Hannah then takes him completely by surprise by letting out a small laugh. Seeing her standing there, makes it the most human Dean has ever seen her.

“Yeah, I suppose I did. I’m sorry,” she says then. Then the nods at him, and makes her leave. Dean shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and looks back outside. Now, all there is, is to simply wait for his visitors to arrive.

 

* * *

 

 

_Men of Letters, HQ_

After all that time praying and begging, he eventually came to her in a dream.

At first, the dream had been calm; Lauren had just finished a case at the court house, and was on her way back home – though where _home_ was, she’s not entirely sure. Just as she was driving her car on automatic pilot, she’s stopped because of a figure standing in the middle of the road.

“You know you’re even more annoying than the Winchesters?” Gabriel says with his arms crossed, looking extremely bored by it all. Lauren steps out of her car, and is surprised by the sudden wind she’s feeling.

“You haven’t been answering my first few calls,” Lauren mutters bitterly. “I don’t do well with being ignored.” Gabriel rolls his eyes.

“Listen, I’m not human; your mind-control power won’t work at me, sweetheart,” the Archangel tells her. Lauren’s eyes fly open as his words sink in; so he’s aware of whatever is wrong with her?

“I just want to know what they are? Why do I have them?” she tries. Gabriel groans in annoyance and turns around. Then he nods towards her to follow him. Silently, she does.

The further she walks, the more the road seems to disappear under her feet. She barely even notices when the stone has changed into warm sand. In front of her now is the beach, where she can see a dream-version of Sam waiting for her to join. Further away are Dean and Cas with the twins – who seem to be around five years old there. They’re far away, so Lauren can’t really see them all that well.

“Are you planning on telling me in _this_ lifetime?” Lauren asks after what feels like ten minutes of quiet. Gabriel groans in frustration and turns around with his hands in his pockets.

“You people are so impatient. I actually _like_ this dreamscape, but all you want to do is _talk_!”

“Don’t act like a child, this is serious,” Lauren scolds him before she can think of it. Gabriel crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at her, not looking impressed at all.

“You have demon blood in you,” he eventually reveals. Lauren drops her mouth open, but can’t produce a sound out of it. What kind of crap is this? “When you were six months old, a very powerful demon called _Azazel_ went into your bedroom and bled in your mouth. You drank that blood, and gained psychic abilities.”

The thought that, when she was only a baby, such a thing would happen…? That sounds like a joke, a very lame one at that!

“Why would a _demon_ do such a thing? Aren’t we humans _weak_ , as all you supernatural beings like to say?”

Gabriel then smirks and nods.

“You got that right, you’re all weak and helpless. But there are just some people on this Earth that are a tiny bit _stronger_ than the others. Azazel had a plan with all of you, if you want the details of that you better ask Sam, since he was one of them, too.”

Gabriel then looks up at the sky before turning his head back towards the four figures in the back. Dean – or Lauren _thinks_ it’s him, at least – is carrying one of the boys on his shoulders while Castiel chases the other one. Lauren somehow wishes this could be a promise, a moment they’ll see happening one day.

Even looking at Sam sitting there, appearing so relaxed… It warms something inside her chest, making her want to go to him and hold him tight.

“You got all you needed out of me, there are other ways for you to get information now so tah!” Gabriel says before his wings make a fluttering sound as he flies off. Lauren isn’t all _that_ surprised he would be off – the fact that he showed up after an entire week of nagging at him inside her head was surprising enough.

“Okay, I should wake up now,” Lauren tells herself. She knows she’s well asleep now, but she’s too aware of herself because of Gabriel’s visit. In this state, all she’s going to do is to ask question after question but not getting any answer from the Sam currently enjoying the beach a little further away.

She should get the real thing.

“But how do I wake up?” she asks to herself. She pinches herself in her arm to try it out, but that doesn’t have much effect. Eventually, she starts looking around, trying to find anything high she can jump off from. She hates heights, but she can’t come up with any other way to get awake.

Walking her way to the cliff is shorter than it should be. Lauren figures it’s just her mind controlling the dream like that. With every step she takes, it feels as if she’s taken ten instead. Before she knows it, she’s looking down at the water underneath her. There’s a wind blowing her hair back, but she can’t feel it on her face. Despite a lack of sun, there entire place feels like a hot summer’s day.

“I should take Sam to the beach one day,” she mutters to herself, and then she jumps.

Seconds later, her eyes open in the real world, and she’s back in the bedroom lying next to Sam. For a long while she looks at him, trying to see if there’s anything different. Despite what Gabriel said about him having powers as well, she just can’t see anything; he’s just the same old Sam.

Silently, her hand reaches out for him, gently stroking his calm and peaceful face. Then she leans forward and presses her lips against his in a soft kiss. Sam hums in surprise and opens his eyes after that. His worried expression dies down the moment he looks at her. A small smile shows up on his lips.

“Hello, beautiful,” he mumbles against her mouth. Lauren closes her eyes before stealing another kiss. Sam’s hand reaches up until it’s behind her head, and then he pulls her closer to him. Touching him feels electric, even more so now since Lauren has been holding herself back ever since that evening. It feels good to just let go, to allow Sam to roll them over until he’s lying over her and pressing his hips close to hers.

A gasp escapes her mouth when one of Sam’s large hands cups her breast. The contact tingles, and Lauren immediately lifts her leg up to wrap it around Sam in another attempt to get him closer. With heavy grunts, Sam pushes stronger and deeper, getting a small sound out of Lauren’s mouth against Sam’s. She squeezes her eyes shut as she gets closer to that edge, feeling small tears appear without her consent.

No, that’s probably the worst thing she can do; crying during sex. Sam will be insulted, and she will have to apologize the entire day. She wants to stop it, but she just can’t. As Sam removes his hand again to take hers into his own, the tears run down freely. He moves faster and faster, until it gets too much and both let out a sigh of relief.

Sam is breathless when he drops down on top of Lauren. His eyes are still shut while he tries to catch his breath, and Lauren quickly wipes away the tears before he can notice them. Her heart is beating fast, her skin is sweaty, and her hands are trembling.

The guilt is eating at her; how can she even know if anything is real? If she can ‘order’ people around by just saying stuff, isn’t there a chance that this steady life she’s started to build for herself is just nothing more than a lie? Can she be sure that Dean would have befriended her had she not had any powers? Would Sam even have fallen for her if she hadn’t pushed herself at him back on that first day they ever met? Where at first she’d just thought she was very convincing all the time, she now knows it’s nothing more than an unnatural power she’s using without thinking about it.

“Lau, what’s wrong?” Sam asks all the sudden, and Lauren realizes that wiping away her tears isn’t making any difference sine new ones come up immediately. Sam pulls away from her, rolling to his side until he’s facing her again. Lauren presses a hand against her forehead when a sob escapes her mouth.

Crap, she’s going to break. Sam is going to worry, and this will be shit.

“What’s wrong, sweety?” Sam then urges on, worriedly. Lauren shakes her head. Can she even explain? Will Sam understand? Surely, he must if he’s the same thing as her, but in every way Sam is so different from her.

“It’s just, uh,” she gasps out, keeping her eyes straight onto the ceiling. She can’t look at him without sobbing even more. Especially when he gives her that worried stare he has mastered completely, making him look like a lost puppy that got beaten a few times. “I spoke to Gabriel.”

She can feel Sam stiffen next to her.

“When?” Sam asks. Lauren takes a deep breath, sniffing her nose once. She absolutely _does not_ like crying, at all.

“Just now, in my dream,” she breathes out. She turns her head to the opposite side, inspecting the door despite the darkness they’re in. Maybe next time she should try and convince Sam to sleep over at her place; at least there there’s sun in the morning.

Oh wait, there’s no doubt she will convince him. That’s the whole problem!

“Did he give you anything?” Sam asks. Lauren startles when his hand comes to rest upon her hip; a steady, comforting gesture – or at least an attempt at one, but it will take a lot more to calm Lauren down right now.

“Yeah he did,” Lauren says. Then she pulls herself up, escaping Sam’s hold. She sits down on the border of the bed, her back facing Sam. She’s aware she’s as naked as the day she was born, but it’s nothing Sam hasn’t seen before.

Behind her, she can hear the rustling of the sheets as Sam shifts a bit. He probably sits up, sensing that they’re going to have a long conversation.

“Tell me,” Sam tells her.

“Can you just-“ she starts, and then she swallows and clears her throat. Another sigh escapes from her. “Can you tell me about _Azazel_?”

 

* * *

 

 

“No way, you cheated!”

Castiel looks up from his book. He’s in the place they’ve remodeled at what comes close to a living room in the past few years, sitting on a couch with the fascinating tale of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ lying on his lap. On each side of him, his boys are resting, eyes closed and breathing even as they’re still in a deep sleep. Come to think of it, it’s almost time to feed them.

On the couch next to him are Claire and Kevin, both of them holding a controller of Kevin’s PlayStation in their hands; Kevin’s is black while Claire’s is a dark blue. The girl is grinning towards the screen, but the Prophet next to her looks like displeased.

“There’s no way to cheat in this game, wise-guy!” Claire counters Kevin’s accusation without taking her eyes from the screen. From where Castiel is seated, he can’t see what’s happening. He’s glad they’re keeping the volume down as much as they can, Castiel doesn’t really want the boys to wake before their food is ready.

“I’m pretty sure there are ways, and you’ve discovered each and every one of them, Novak,” Kevin mutters bitterly. Then he drops his controller simultaneously when Claire holds her arms up in the air in some kind of gesture of victory. There’s a big grin on her face that gives Castiel a warm and happy feeling. It’s good to see her like this, instead of angry all the time.

“Whatcha playing?” suddenly comes up from behind them. Castiel turns his head a bit more to the side to see Benjamin Braeden walk up, rubbing his eyes and hair wild from the night. It’s clear that he’s only just woken up.

“Just some Call of Duty, but Kevin is a real sore loser,” Claire jokes before passing her hand through his hair, messing it up and making it stand up in the air. Kevin pushes her hands away in a bitter protest, but Castiel is sure he’s not really angry at her.

“Oh, sounds cool, can I try it? Mom never let me have a PlayStation,” Ben says, seeming curious to try out the device. Kevin opens his mouth to answer, but he stops when Claire gets up from the seat.

“Yeah, take my place! I’m going to get something to eat,” Claire says, handing the blue thing towards Ben before giving Kevin another wink. When she catches Castiel sitting there, she points at the twins and makes an eating gesture. Castiel nods, knowing what she meant.

Then Claire holds up her thumb and heads towards the kitchen to get her food and warm up the prepared formula Cas had put aside before he came to sit here. He closes the book then and gives his boy on his right – Jonah – a long look. It’s not long until the infant opens his eyes and stares right back at him. His feet kick happily in the air when he realizes he’s getting attention, and then his hands reach up towards him.

Castiel instinctively holds out his hand, allowing his son to grab onto his finger. He’s not surprised at the strength of their hold anymore. They will always be stronger than any normal human. Stronger than _Castiel_ , even.

“ _Almost time to eat,”_ Castiel tells him in Enochian, knowing the boy understands it somehow. They both seem more responsive to the language, he’s noticed quickly. Their reaction to Enochian is much different to English. It’s like the language of the Angels calms them down, speaks to their Grace.

Next to him, Alan starts to shift as well. When Castiel turns his head around, he can see his son sucking on his fingers, having dropped the pacifier from his mouth during his sleep. His feet, too, are kicking in the air, and a small noise escapes his mouth. Castiel smiles lightly and picks up the pacifier to offer it back to his son.

On the couch next to him, Kevin and Ben start up a new game.

“So, what’s the deal between you two?” Ben suddenly asks. Castiel tries not to eavesdrop, but there’s no escaping this conversation. Besides, he wants to learn more about Ben. If he’s truly Dean’s son, he needs to know what kind of person Ben is. He knows it won’t be easy to get his trust, but he figures he might have to start somewhere.

“What deal?” Kevin asks, distracted from smashing buttons on his controller. Ben frowns at the screen, and then tries some things. Clearly, he’s never held one of those in his hands.

“You and Novak? I kind of sensed something there?” Ben continues. Kevin blinks a few times and then shakes his head.

“There’s nothing there, you’re just imagining things,” Kevin answers. It must be good, Castiel figures, to have people closer to his age around him. Sure, Claire is almost two years younger and Ben four years, but they’re still all teenagers.

“Yeah, sure, I know my way around the ladies, pal, and that chick is totally into you,” Ben counters. It bothers Castiel when he hears Claire being addressed as ‘chick’, but he figures that’s just the Dean-part that stands out in the boy. “I would say, go for it, man!”

“Dude, no!” Kevin mutters. Castiel quickly comes to realize Kevin doesn’t even know Ben all that well. He’s only been made aware of the teenager’s presence the moment they came back from Dean last evening. The two hardly even spoke to each other. “Claire’s just a friend.”

“Yeah, well, that _friend_ of yours definitely has a crush on you,” Ben says, and then he drops the controller. “Man, this game is harder than it looks.” And with that, it’s clear that he ended the conversation. Right on time, too, since Claire finally comes back with a bag of chips in her mouth and two bottles of formula in her hands. When she gets behind the couch, she drops the bag on it. Ben immediately reaches for it, tearing it open and picking a handful out.

“I’ll take Alan,” Claire says, handing one bottle to Castiel and picking Alan from his spot on the couch. The boy makes a protesting sound at being lifted, but immediately calms against Claire’s shoulder when he recognizes the leftover Grace inside of her. For that, Castiel envies her a lot.

He knows she took Alan because he’s the calmer one of the two. Alan usually drinks his formula without complaining, which can’t exactly be said from Jonah, who often disagrees and refuses to drink at first. It’s for the best Claire takes him, since Castiel is going to need both his hands for his eldest son.

“Thank you, Claire,” Castiel says. Claire just nods at him and walks back to the couch. She sits down between Ben and Kevin, and puts Alan down on her lap. Castiel observes intently how the three teenagers sit together. He notices Kevin putting down his controller and looking awkwardly to the side. When Ben gives the Prophet that typical Winchester-wink, Castiel can’t help but let out a small snort. He’s probably been around Dean for too long if _that_ affects him already.

Jonah makes a complaining sound next to him and Castiel quickly shakes his head. Right, he was about to feed his son. He puts the bottle on the side and with both hands he picks up his boy. Before feeding him, he makes him stand a little bit – that is, making Jonah’s feet rest on his legs while Castiel keeps him up. The boy can manage to hold up his head for a short amount of time now, and he seems to like being held that way. A giggle escapes his mouth, and one of his hands comes to rest onto Castiel’s face.

A strong sense of warmth passes through him upon meeting Jonah’s blue eyes. His heart swells, like it’s about to burst out of his chest. In all of his existence, he would never have known he could ever feel like this. Falling in love with Dean had been a life-changing experience, but getting to feel this; to love a child he helped create and know that he’s his… Had anybody told him that a hundred years ago, he would have ended them without hesitation.

He knows he’s gotten soft, but holding this little figure in his hands can’t make him regret anything. So Castiel puts Jonah down – where Claire puts Alan on her knees, Castiel rests Jonah in the crook of his elbow. Then he picks up the bottle, and offers it to Jonah, who quickly looks away and pushes the bottle aside.

“ _Don’t be grumpy now, Jonah Martin Winchester,”_ Castiel mutters in frustration. Only nine weeks old, and he already has to bring up their full names. Of course, he’s had to say ‘Alan Jonathan Winchester’ quite less in comparison to Jonah’s name. The eldest boy is just fussier and more… human, in comparison to his brother. Even at such a young age, Castiel can deduce at least that. Alan is just calmer than the average baby.

After five minutes of trying, Jonah finally allows Castiel to feed him. His tiny hands grab on the bottle, unable to hold it up but still trying to get some control in there. With soft sucking noises, Jonah takes in the slightly heated liquid. From the couch next to him, he can hear Alan already belching while Claire pats his back. The teenagers are softly talking to each other – Castiel even catches Ben feeding Claire some of the chips since her hands are full.

Castiel is sure he will never completely understand humans…

“Castiel, can I join you to the hospital today?” Claire suddenly asks. Castiel’s eyes quickly meets hers upon the question. She seems curious, as if she _really_ wants to come along. Somehow, she seems to have grown kind of fond of Dean in the past few weeks since she’s been here.

“Sure, but I wasn’t going today until much later,” the ex-Angel says calmly. When Jonah starts to push the bottle away again, Castiel gives the boy some room to breathe. After a few seconds, he lowers it once more, and Jonah continues his breakfast.

“How come?” Claire asks curiously. Castiel then turns to look at Ben next to her.

“I wanted to give Dean some time with Ben, to catch up,” Castiel admits. Ben raises his eyebrows at him, studying him with intense brown eyes. While he looks very much like Dean, the eyes are completely Lisa Braeden’s.

“Well, how am I supposed to get to the hospital? I don’t have a car?” Ben counters. Claire and Kevin snort.

“Dude, there’s a whole garage full of cars! And they work, since Dean has been keeping them up and running the entire time,” Kevin counters. Claire nods at that. Then, as if he can’t get out of that seat quickly enough, Kevin jumps up. “How about I show you, huh?”

And he hurries around the couch and grabs Ben by the sleeve of his shirt, pulling him along. Ben doesn’t protest, but his stare doesn’t leave Castiel for quite a while. For a moment, Castiel wonders what he could have done wrong, but then he remembers; he’s the one who took his memories away when Dean asked him to.

Castiel is the one who made Ben forget. And ever since the boy has been possessed by a demon, all the memories must have come back. Which means that, in his desperate attempt to please Dean, Castiel has done a horrible job of what his friend (and now husband) has asked of him back then.

“Jeesh, I don’t really know what to think of that guy,” Claire mutters the moment the boys are out of the room. She’s still patting a happy Alan on his back, gently rocking him around. Carefully, she stands up to get back closer to Castiel. Without saying anything, she sits herself down next to him.

Castiel observes the girl with close attention. Her blonde hair is neatly done, put together in a braid that rests over her shoulders. Around her eyes, the dark shadows aren’t as outspoken as before. It seems like she’s using more neutral colors now, in contrast to when Castiel first saw her again after many years.

“Say, Cas, would you be extremely angry if I say that I want to dye my hair blue?”

If Castiel would have been drinking anything, he surely would have spit it back out. Claire comes up with the question completely out of the blue, fingers of her free hand distractedly toying with some strands of hair. She tries to avert her eyes from him while she awaits his answer, but Castiel wonders why she even asked him in the first place.

When has she ever needed his permission for something?

“I would say it’s your hair, and you should do with it whatever you want to do,” he answers calmly, though he can feel his heart beating faster just because of it all. It has never been his intention to take Jimmy’s place in her life. He doesn’t need to be her father, all he wants is just to make sure she’s safe.

“What, no ‘it’s not natural to color your hair like that’ crap?” Claire asks, surprised by Castiel’s easy answer. The Angel – no, man – shrugs and looks back down at his son in his arms.

“I’m older than humanity, my sons are half-Angel. I’m pretty sure _natural_ doesn’t really cut it in this family,” Castiel answers. Claire offers him a light smile at that, and then she leans a bit to the side until her head is resting against his shoulder.

They don’t speak for a while. When Jonah finishes his breakfast, Castiel puts down the bottle at last, and holds the boy against his chest while patting his back much like Claire did with Alan. Quickly enough, Jonah lets out an impressive burp before making a content noise at being sated like that. Castiel can see his eyes drop close again, and he quickly presses a short kiss against the back of his head.

“I do have a question to ask you, Claire,” Castiel eventually dares to try when he’s absolutely sure the boys have both fallen back asleep. Claire lifts her head a little bit; an indication that she’s listening. “Is it possible that you might have developed some romantic feelings towards Kevin?”

Quickly, Claire sits back up, looking as if she’s been caught cheating on her exam. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is dropped open. In the sudden movement, Alan makes a disagreeing sound, but he quickly settles again.

“What- Who told you that?” Claire asks in a high-pitched voice. “You shouldn’t believe it, it’s bullshit!”

“Please, do not curse in front of my sons,” Castiel tells her sternly. Claire gives him a glare, but she does think of her words after that.

“I do not have a crush on Kevin,” the girl mutters, but Castiel can see the blood raising in her face. Her cheeks are reddened, and she blinks more than before. Her hand quickly pushes aside a strand of hair, putting it behind her ear.

“It would be alright if you did, of course,” Castiel assures her. “Kevin is a smart boy, and he likes to keep himself educated all the time. In fact, I would really approve it if anything would start between you two.”

Claire groans.

“Listen, we’re not having this talk; I don’t have a crush on Kevin freaking Tran, alright?” Claire says. Castiel holds up his hand in defeat and slumps back against the couch. The scars on his shoulder blades don’t hurt as bad as before, but he’ll always feel a sting at the missing of his wings. He’s sure that ache will never leave. “Why… do you think he _likes_ me?”

“Benjamin certainly seems to think you do,” Castiel offers. Claire rolls her eyes.

“Of course, _Ben_. He barely even knows us!” the teenager counters. Castiel just shrugs. “What, you’re going to believe him over _me?”_

“I don’t need to believe anybody. You just need to know that it’s alright to like somebody,” Castiel explains. After all, he liked Dean for years and is now even married to him. If anything, all he would tell Claire is not to wait too long before eventually taking action.

“Whatever,” Claire mutters. She then lifts Alan back up and starts handing him back to Castiel. The man takes the baby from her, and quickly mirrors his position with Jonah’s. Then she stands up and gets back to the couch to turn off the device. “I’m going into town today, maybe check out a movie.”

“You can ask Kevin to join you?” Castiel offers. Claire glares at him.

“Ha-ha, very funny Cupido,” she counters defensively. But then her face falls and she looks pensive, instead. Before she can say anything else, though, a knock on the door stops her from speaking. Both turn their head towards the door, immediately alarmed. Nobody just _comes_ by, as far as they know. There haven’t been any announcements of somebody coming to visit?

“I’ll check it out,” Claire says, and then she runs up the stairs before Castiel can even stop her. He calls after her, but she disappears in just one moment. Carefully, he tries to get up from the couch. Then he drops the boys down on their play mat. Jonah sleeps it off but Alan seems happy to be put down on his belly and being able to grab at stuff to throw them around. Then Castiel carefully walks to the door-opening. He doesn’t leave the room, but still tries to catch a glimpse of who is at the door.

“Claire?” he asks in worry. No answer comes, but there’s the sound of a few people walking back down the stairs. The moment they come into view, Castiel recognizes Garth and Bessy. The woman is holding a baby of her own in her arms. They look healthy and happy, and the moment Garth notices him, he hurries towards him. Claire, meanwhile, steps away to get to her room.

“Castiel, it’s been a while!” he calls out before wrapping his arms around him. Castiel is surprised by the sudden hug, unable to respond anything. When Garth pulls back, he keeps his hands on Castiel’s arms and looks at him. “How have you been? Is parenthood treating you well?”

“Uh, I’m fine. Mostly tired, I suppose. How are things with you?” Castiel asks. He can’t really say much about Garth; last time he saw him, Castiel had been drunk from the wine and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Eventually, Garth lets go. That’s when Bessy comes to stand in front of him and nods his way.

“We’re doing fine! We just thought we could introduce our little Judy to your boys at last,” Garth responds, pointing towards his baby daughter in Bessy’s arms. She’s bigger than the twins are, but not yet one year old, Castiel supposes. Still, she’s probably around six months old by now, maybe even seven.

“This must be Judith? She looks healthy,” Castiel observes. When he smiles at her, Judith looks away. It seems she’s a shy girl. Her blonde hair is short, but despite the length Bessy still gave her a blue ribbon. She’s wearing a dark blue dress, and in her hand she’s holding some sort of doll.

“Yeah, sorry, she’s just a little shy around grown-ups,” Garth answers. “Can we maybe put her with your boys? See if they get along?”

Castiel shrugs. He agrees with Dean there; the boys are only nine weeks old, not even two months. There won’t be much ‘getting along’, really. “Go ahead,” he still says though. Garth nods with a smile, and Bessy walks towards the mat on the ground to sit down her baby. The girl looks a bit disoriented for a moment, but the moment she notices the toys littering around she grabs one and starts gnawing on it. Before Castiel can stop her, Garth starts to laugh affectionately.

“Ain’t she just adorable?” he asks happily. He leans forward a bit, putting his hands on his knees as he observes his daughter with the twins. “Your boys look healthy as well?”

“Jonah is sleeping,” Castiel says shortly, frowning when he sees Alan throw something on his brother. “Excuse me.”

After that, Castiel walks towards the three infants and kneels down. He takes Alan’s hands into his own, earning him an intense stare from his younger son. Those eyes are so very much Dean’s, it touches something in his chest. Probably his heart… these human emotions are just weird.

“ _Alan, we do not throw stuff on others,”_ Castiel chastises him, but he figures he’s probably too young to understand it. Much like he suspected, Alan just stares back at him. The pacifier falls out of his mouth, but he barely even notices, to focused on his father in front of him.

Castiel sighs, drops Alan’s hands and helps him take the pacifier again before he picks up Jonah and holds him close against his chest. The little boy makes a content noise, but otherwise just sleeps on quietly. After that, Castiel rejoins his two guests with the baby close to him.

“I’m sorry about that, I didn’t want him to wake Jonah up,” Castiel explains. Garth and Bessy just smile, eyes pointed on the child in his arms.

“He looks beautiful,” Bessy says, seeming unable to take her eyes off his son. Castiel feels a weird sense of pride going through him, knowing that this child is _his_. He’s never really felt this way before, but it doesn’t feel too bad.

“How is Dean doing? We were planning on saying hello today,” Garth says, seeming like he really wants to put a hand on Jonah’s head to just touch. When Castiel nudges him forward a bit, the Werewolf seems to take that as an invitation, gently caressing his fingers over Jonah’s thin blond hair.

“Dean is slowly pulling through,” Castiel says, feeling heavy all of the sudden. “He was doing better, but now they’ve realized he’s got some more cardiac problems, and he risks surgery again.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Garth says, genuinely feeling sorry for it. “But knowing Dean, I know he’ll get through that without complaining.”

Castiel snorts.

“Knowing Dean, he’ll no nothing other than complain,” Castiel counters, and Bessy and Garth chuckle as well.

“Oh, well, I was trying to be kind, but if you say so, I must agree,” Garth says. The three adults laugh a bit, and then Jonah starts to fuss. Gently, Castiel starts to bounce him up and down. It’s something Sam told him to do if he wanted to put the boys to sleep, and so far it’s been working wonders.

Like he suspected, Jonah dozes off again and stops moving. Castiel doesn’t stop his movements, still. It feels good to do this with him.

“Actually, while visiting hours start around two, I often go there around noon – being Dean’s husband and bringing the boys around, the nurses seem to have formed some sympathy for us and allow us in earlier in case there’s no roommate,” Castiel explains. He then takes a deep breath and puts his left hand on the back of Jonah’s head. “But Dean’s son, Ben, has returned, and I thought I’d give them a little moment before I go visit. They have a few years to catch up.”

“Dean has a son?” Garth asks in confusion, then looking down at the child in Castiel’s arms. “I mean, besides the twins of course.”

“Yes,” Castiel answers. “He didn’t know Ben was his son, though. Lisa Braeden kept it secret for many years out of fear that Dean would run off.”

Garth frowns, but doesn’t speak.

“He also has an Amazon daughter in Purgatory?” Castiel then adds, and Garth’s eyes widen even more. Bessy scratches her head as she tries to understand what he’s talking about. “Her name is Emma, but Sam killed her when she was trying to kill Dean about four years ago.”

Garth opens his mouth, but seems unable to produce any sound. Then he puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head.

“You know, I’ve learned not to ask too many questions in this line of work,” he admits with a grin. Castiel, too, gives a light smile before leaning forward a bit and pressing a kiss on Jonah’s head. “So is it okay if we go and see him today, then? We could wait until tomorrow?” Garth asks. Castiel shakes his head.

“No, it’s alright. Ben will go to the hospital first, and I was planning on going after three hours or so. That must be enough time to catch up, I think. You could come with me, then.”

Garth and Bessy nod, and offer him a light smile. Castiel smiles back, and then the three turn around to look back at the two babies lying on the mat. Somehow, Judith has crawled towards one of the toy-devices Alan seems to be amusing himself with. The girl is sitting up and pushing buttons on the thing while Alan quickly copies her movements. They seem to get along well enough, but they’re still too young to really think _anything_ about each other.

Castiel still smiles widely, holding Jonah even closer to his chest. While this moment already feels pretty good, he knows having Dean here would just make it perfect.

All he needs to do is just wait.

  

* * *

 

 

Ben arrives precisely at two in the afternoon. He’s alone, dressed in a plaid shirt and ripped jeans. His shoes look like they’ve had better days – and is that blood on the soles?

It’s awkward at first; Ben just sits himself down on the chair, putting a part of his hair in a messy bun but having most of it fall back out of it. He looks like some sort of hippie like this; Dean shouldn’t be too surprised if he would be an occasional drug-user. He has that whole ‘I don’t care about anything’-attitude going on. There’s some facial hair starting to grow on his chin, but it can’t even be called a beard yet.

Eventually, after fifteen minutes of what must have been the most awkward silence, Ben finally starts talking. He asks Dean about his life ever since they parted ways. In return, he tells Dean about starting high school, meeting a girl called Susan who ended up being his first girlfriend. The further he goes, the calmer he gets. By the time he gets to the demon attack, he just falls quiet.

Dean looks down at the boy – his son, his mind quickly reminds him, though that thought really feels weird in many ways – and finds a kid that tries too hard to be tough. A sweet boy that wants to be like his father so much that he acts like nothing bothers him all.

Dean knows from experience that it’s nothing more than a façade. Looking strong and feeling strong are two entirely different things.

After a long silence, both seem to agree that talking about the crap they’ve been through is the last thing they need right now. Ben sits up a bit in the chair to look back at his father – Dean feels strong ache in his chest upon seeing Lisa’s familiar brown eyes in Ben’s.

“So, you got married?” Ben suddenly asks. Dean snorts a little bit; after one hour of just bringing up the past, it seems like Ben has finally had enough of it and wants to know more.

“Yeah, it was quite a party. Too bad you missed it,” Dean answers, and Ben chuckles. Dean sees him rubbing his arm nervously, and suddenly realizes the boy doesn’t seem like he can look him in the eyes. “Listen, Ben, I know it might be weird that after your mother I end up married to a guy, but there’s a perfect expla-“

“Dude, I would be the biggest hypocrite to be bothered about that,” Ben quickly counters, offering him a grin. Dean’s eyes widen, and his mouth falls open from surprise. Then, he catches himself and quickly closes it again?

“So, you like boys, then,” he states calmly. It doesn’t bother him at all, of course. Probably just took him by surprise a little bit. When Ben shrugs, it seems like the boy hasn’t really had a chance to discuss anything about it with anybody.

“Girls, too,” he adds like it’s the most normal thing on Earth. When he grins at Dean, the man comes to understand that his son has pretty much accepted himself when it comes to his sexuality. Good, that means Dean doesn’t need to have the awkward talk.

Or, maybe he’ll still need to have one part of it? But that’s probably not something for today; it would be too much to bring up after four years of not seeing each other.

And that’s when he suddenly realizes he might need to have that talk with the twins one day when they’re around Ben’s age. Crap, that’s one part of parenthood nobody really tells you about.

“Anyway, I figure those two babies at home are my little brothers? From what I gathered from Sam, you’re their father?”

Dean nods.

“Yeah, and so is Cas,” he answers. Ben gives him a long look and then nods as well.

“Cool, I can live with that. Though one day you’ll need to tell me how exactly that happened,” he jokes with a wink. Dean laughs, finding that, after all these years, talking to Ben hasn’t gotten any harder than before. “Though what’s the deal with this Claire-chick?”

“That’s a bit harder to explain,” Dean admits, and after that he starts to tell him about Jimmy Novak, the Angels, and all the other crap he left out back when he lived with then Braeden’s for a little longer than a year.

Ben takes it all well enough. He nods, never interrupts, and sometimes asks questions to get some clarification. Even when Dean begrudgingly admitted that not even three months ago he still had boobs, Ben didn’t seem phased. It hurts a little bit to see him like this, like nothing surprises him anymore. This is exactly the thing Dean never wanted for Ben.

As promised, Cas and the boys arrive at three, followed by Claire and surprisingly Garth’s small family. There’s another typical hug coming from the lycanthrope-hunter, and after short greetings the boys are quickly put into his arms so he can hold them tight.

In a way, it feels like having the boys close gives Dean energy. If he’s tired before holding them, he feels just fine holding them without a trace of the exhaustion he felt before. His nose immediately sinks in their light hair, lips pressing against their scalp in a soft kiss. If it were up to him, he would have kept them here until he’s safe to get back out again.

He does notice the weird look Claire gives Ben the moment the two see each other. It’s not completely distrust, but more Claire silently telling him to watch his back. Did the two start on the wrong foot or something?

After giving the nurses a head’s up, the entire group decides to leave the small space of the room, rather just sitting outside now that the sun is shining again. Alan, Jonah and Judith are each put in their place in the stroller, and after taking Dean’s IV along, the group heads towards the elevator.

Much to his surprise, he hears some banter between Claire and Ben – mostly coming from Ben, which is what surprises Dean a bit since they can’t know each other longer than a day now. He’s aware that Garth is talking to him about Judith’s whole birth, but the words don’t really see to get through to him.

Eyes planted onto the two baby boys in the stroller, Dean suddenly finds himself speechless. He frowns, focusing a bit more in the stroller to just check it out if he’s not just imagining things, but after ten more seconds he’s sure that what he sees is real.

“Cas, wasn’t Alan wearing a blue shirt?” Dean asks, remembering very well that the boy had been wearing that specific color when he was put in Dean’s arms. Garth stops talking and takes a quick look inside the stroller as well. Cas turns his head around to check what Dean is talking about, and then he hums.

“Huh, I suppose he likes red more,” he says, sounding like he’s not too surprised his boy probably changed the color of his shirt at will. The elevator dings, and they all get out again. Cas then puts the stroller somewhere he won’t be in the way, and he picks Alan back out of it, taking a good look at the shirt he’s wearing.

“Are you telling me our sons can just randomly change colors of stuff?” Dean hisses at him, trying not to be too loud about it. Castiel nods shortly.

“Yes, I had suspected that would be an ability they would possess. It’s not a very powerful talent, but it can have its advantages,” he explains, putting the boy back down, earning himself a giggle from the boy who gives him a bare-toothed smile.

“And you never really thought about telling me about that specific skill?” Dean asks in another loud whisper. Cas gives him a confused stare, standing there as if he can’t really understand why Dean is making such a big deal about it. “Don’t you think his teachers might think it’s weird if he would arrive in school later in a white shirt and walk back out in a red one? Or if he would suddenly change other people’s clothes?”

“Oh,” Castiel lets out, suddenly seeming to understand. “You do not have to worry about that, Dean. I’ll teach them not to do that.”

He knows it should be reassurance, but it doesn’t really work that well. He just gives him a short nod before shaking his head again and throwing his hands in the air.

“My kids are going to be the death of me,” he mutters, only to receive a playful ‘hey!’ from Ben.

 

* * *

 

 

  _Somewhere down the road outside of Lebanon_

Out of all the crappy days he’s ever had in this year, Sam Winchester has to admit that this one might be pretty high on his list of ‘crappiest day 2015’, falling behind ‘Dean dying’ and ‘holding Dean’s actual dead body in his arms’, which also sucked pretty much by the way.

Lauren is gone, back to the court room to finish off a case. It had been Sam who told her to go, after she’s been saying back and forth that she shouldn’t even think about it with this mind-controlling power she can’t really seem to grab a hold of.

Sam just needed her to go, just for a little while. It has nothing to do with her precisely, but yet it still kind of does. She’s chosen, after all. Just like Sam had been chosen. The both of them, tainted with Demon Blood – Sam maybe a little less now after the whole closing-the-gates-of-Hell-stuff – and holding a power too strong for them to control.

It has been years Sam has had visions. If the headaches hadn’t been so strong, he thinks he probably wouldn’t even remember how it felt like to wake up after having one. All he can recall is fear, in a way, but fear is also what drove him to open a locked door with his mind back when Dean was about to get shot in the brains.

Sam is driving, but to where he doesn’t really know.

His hands are gripping the wheel tightly, his foot pressing the acceleration pedal a bit too long. He passes by trees, fields with cows slowly eating their grass, a few farms. He knows he’s way above the speed limit, but right now he can’t really find himself to care much about it.

It’s probably another hour of driving before he passes the border of Kansas, and for a short moment he wonders if he should just go, get himself onto a little roadtrip on his own. It sounds great, and would bring back many memories.

But at the same time, it would also not feel right, because Dean isn’t there.

Dean Winchester, his older brother, who is currently stuck in a hospital room for who knows how long, currently being visited by his husband and sons, Claire, and a happy Werewolf-family Sam is honestly glad to have escaped before he left.

Sam sighs and lifts his foot from the pedal to instead press on the break. With a loud screech, the car comes to a stop, leaving dark marks from the tires onto the road. Then, with a loud groan, Sam’s forehead ends up being pressed against the steering wheel, right in between his hands.

Fucking Azazel, fucking demons… It’s like he’ll never really be able to escape from these ‘special children’ after everything. He’s had to see many of them being murdered by the hands of Ava – sweet, kind Ava who had fallen for everything Azazel promised her. Sam squeezes his eyes shut and bites his lip, only to turn his head to the side.

That’s when he notices something in the rear window.

A figure, standing behind his car.

With a frown, Sam releases his seat belt – because even if he’s going to break all the speed limits, at least he doesn’t have a death wish – and reaches for the handle to open the door. Then, with cracking knees and after making sure an Angel blade is safely tucked in the inside of his coat, Sam gets himself out of the car to face the figure standing there.

How many times will somebody confront him in the middle of the road?

“Who the hell are you?” Sam asks. The person – a woman with her hands stuck in the pockets of her pants and fiery red curls reminding Sam a bit of the Disney princess from _Brave_ – snorts at him and then shrugs, not taking a step backwards when Sam steps forward.

“My name is not important, I would say,” the girl says, but everything about her screams ‘demon’. Maybe it’s the blood inside her veins that will always call to Sam even after all those years. Maybe it’s just the behavior she’s showing. Either way, Sam doesn’t trust her, and he’s pretty sure she won’t escape this place alive.

After another step forward, she raises an eyebrow, eyes pointed at that place where underneath Sam’s coat his weapon is resting. She’s aware he has it, but she doesn’t act on it.

“Smart move, last night. Exorcizing all those demons back to Hell and sparing their meatsuits for later? That’s really badass. Of course, all those people you attempted to rescue don’t really seem to have all that much luck right now.”

Sam knows what she’s doing; she’s trying to play with his emotions, tell him things that will get him angry, get him distracted before she kicks his brains out. He’s talked with enough Demons to know how they work.

“What do you mean?” he asks, preparing himself for the news he’s probably about to get.

“Eh,” the demon shrugs again, looking down at her nails. “They’re all dead.”

Sam is fuming, but he knows better than to react. This is just how demons work, after all.

“What, no threats for my life? No knife glistering in the sun light as you point it at my weak, tiny body?”

Sam huffs out a breath, and then turns his head to the side, watching how the clouds start following him all the way back from Lebanon. It had been raining when he left. It’ll surely be raining again, soon.

“Why are you here?” Sam asks instead, raising an eyebrow at the demon. A strand of hair starts to blow into his face, and he pushes it aside wordlessly.

“I came to warn you about what you’ve unleashed back on Earth,” the demon says. Sam rolls his eyes.

“Oh no, demons! If only there was a way to get rid of them,” he counters sarcastically. The demon smirks.

“That little spell you’ve performed has left us all weak – very weak. We’re not even a match for that pathetic older brother of yours, that’s how horrible you’ve left us.”

“Hold on while I’ll go search for any empathy I might have left for you,” Sam mutters bitterly. Is she trying to get some compassion? She’ll have to try harder.

“But we will have our revenge, Sam Winchester. It might take years before we will act on it, but one day, we will come back, stronger than before. So we’ll give you and your family your short moment of peace – only that way it will really _hurt_ when it’s all taken away from you again.”

That’s when Sam lets out an angry growl and pulls out the blade to point it towards the demon, only when he looks back at her, the dark clouds are already escaping the girl’s body before she drops down on the ground. In a quick run, Sam hurries towards her, glad to find that she still has a heartbeat.

Good, at least _somebody_ he could save.

 


End file.
